E-passports spread to half the globe

Nearly half of all United Nations (U.N.) member states are now issuing biometric e-passports (Contactless News)

CAO estimates that as of July 2011, these 93 states have issued more than 345 million e-passports, of which almost 340 million are in circulation.

As per ICAO specifications, each of these documents contains a contactless integrated circuit chip that stores biometric data–i.e. facial, fingerprint or iris–of the passport holder as well as other encrypted identification data. Forty-five of the e-passport issuing states store both fingerprint and facial data on their documents, while 34 store only the facial data. The remaining 14 states currently use facial data, but will begin including fingerprints by the end of 2011.

Article, maps & stats at the link.

Frost & Sullivan Predicts Mandatory Implementation of e-Passports for ICAO Member Countries by 2015

Since 191 countries are ICAO members, that would pretty much make biometric passports the world standard.

Boost to Adoption of e-Gate Systems (findBIOMERTRICS)

Travel documents are for terrorists just as important as weapons, according to the key finding from the 9/11 Commission Report. This is the reason border control systems based on biometric applications have become the solution of choice in identifying potential threats. There is also considerable emphasis on the identification of immigrants using e-Passports and e-Visas to channel biometric data to destination countries to reduce illegal immigration.

Biometrics and Interoperability Combine to Shrink the Market for Stolen Passports

Curbing passport abuses (Asia One News)

The theft and sale of Malaysian passports could end soon when Kuala Lumpur signs in to a global system for e-passport validation, which enables other countries to read details, such as fingerprints, in the chip embedded in the passport.

Black market sales of Malaysian passports are a thriving business as citizens of countries with dubious reputations pay good money to enjoy the same treatment Malaysians get at entry points.

Government sources said while Malaysia's e-passports were embedded with a smart chip, other countries could not access the database or read the details.

However, by being a part of the International Civil Aviation Organisation's Public Key Directory, Malaysian passports would benefit from interoperability with border controls of at least 75 nations.

Interoperability refers to the ability of a system to work with other systems.

I like that this article puts Interoperability on an equal footing with Technology. Identity management is about people. An efficient and successful ID management system depends upon good information, good technology and good relationships between those who create (and vouch for) an identity document and those who accept the ID document as valid.