International Civil Aviation Organization Standards
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) issues passport standards which are treated as recommendations to national governments. The size of passports normally comply with ISO/IEC 7810 ID-3 standard, which specifies a size of 125 × 88 mm (4.921 × 3.465 in). This size is the B7 format.
- Standard passport format
- The standard passport format includes the name of the issuing country on a passport cover, a national symbol, a description of the document (e.g., passport, official passport, diplomatic passport), and -- if the passport is biometric -- the biometric passport symbol. Inside, there is a title page, also naming the country. This is followed by a data page, on which there is information about the bearer and the issuing authority, although passports of some European Union member states provide that information on the inside back cover. There are blank pages available for foreign countries to affix visas, and to stamp for entries and exit. Passports have numerical or alphanumerical designators ("serial number") assigned by the issuing authority.
- Machine-readable passport standards
- Standards for machine-readable passports have also been issued by the ICAO, with an area set aside where most of the information written as text is also printed in a manner suitable for optical character recognition.
- e-Passport standards
- To conform with ICAO standards, a biometric passport has an embedded contactless smart card, which contains data about the passport holder, a photograph in digital format, and data about the passport itself. Many countries now issue biometric passports. The objectives for the biometric passports are to speed up clearance through immigration and the prevention of identity fraud. These reasons are disputed by privacy advocates.
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