I forgot to mention that my new passport finally turned up a couple of weeks ago, having taken about 6 weeks to work its way through the system. So I am now the proud owner of a shiny new e-passport. What that 'e' means is that the passport stores 'biometrics' (i.e. a scan on my mugshot) and the rest of the passport details on a chip which is laminated onto one of the pages along with an antenna so that anyone with appropriate equipment can read the card from a distance. Officially this is only readable at very close range (I couldn't find the official figure, unfortunately) and is protected by strong encryption, but the range can be extended with the right kit and encryption can, under the right circumstances, be defeated by a man-in-the-middle attack. Dealing with this sort of thing is not easy, but I can't help thinking that a contact only reader should be safer.
Interestingly enough, a £15 hike in the cost of a passport was announced recently, which pretty much makes up for the waste of me getting my new passport a couple of years early. This is on top of the rise last autumn, which I make to be a 57% increase in two years. That's a good bit of inflation there.
2 comments:
You need to invest in one of these, a stylish, reasonably priced leather passport holder - lined with metal to keep the pesky radio signals from penetrating. The passport can't be read whilst the holder is closed.
Cute, though I suspect they'd set off the buzzers at the security check. To to protect from RF snooping I would have to stick my most important document in a tray and let it out of my sight for a couple of minutes. Though I suppose I already have to do that with my wallet, which is probably not a good idea either...
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