E-Passport (biometric Passport)
India has recently initiated the first phase of biometric e-passport for Diplomatic Passport holders in India and abroad. The new passports have been designed locally in India by the Central Passport Organisation, the India Security Press and IIT Kanpur. It contains a security chip with all personal data and digital images. In the first phase new passports will have a 64KB chip carrying a personal photograph of the passport holder and in subsequent phases it will have a fingerprint. The new passport has already been tested with passport readers in the United States and have 4 second response times, which is about 2/5 of US Passport 10 second response time. It need not be carried in a metal jacket for security reasons, it will first need to be skimmed through a reader, after which it would generate an access code which then unlocks the chip for reader access.
On 25 June 2008 the Indian Passport Authority issued the first e-passport to President of India, Pratibha Patil. The e-passport is under its first phase of deployment and is restricted to Diplomatic passport holders. It was announced that from September 2009 onwards biometric passport would be available to other citizens, however, it seems that one can expect the biometric passport from 2013 onwards.
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