The secretary to the government of India in the External Affairs, Sanjay Bhattacharya made an announcement that the country is going to introduce e-passport for the citizens soon. He conveyed that the next-gen passports will fortify biometric data and trouble-free passage through extradition posts worldwide and these passports are ICAO-complaint and will be initiated at India Security Press in Nashik, Maharashtra.
Already, the first e-passport with biometric details in India was presented to the former president Pratibha Patil in the year 2008. Currently, Bangladesh, Germany and UK countries have received the biometric passports.
Description about e-passport :
An e-passport is similar to an ordinary passport. It is having a small electronic chip, which appears same as the chip on the driver’s licence. This microchip will preserve all the details those printed on the passport, such as your name, date of birth, address and etc. The immigration counters can check the details of a traveller instantaneously with the help of this microchip. This initiation of e-passport will also help to reduce the diffusion of fake passports. The microchip was developed to secure the stored information and it makes difficult for scammers to steal the data.
The microchip is also said to store the biometric details along with other information which makes it easier to identify a traveller digitally. Additionally, the microchip can also store your previous trips’ details.
Let’s know about biometric data :
Generally, biometric data is all about your eyes, fingerprint, face and other features that most of use daily on smartphones that represents facial recognition feature or fingerprints. Here, according to e-passport, the biometric data is nothing but fingerprints. The government already saves your fingerprints before issuing a new passport to you. Then it will be easier to compare and verify your identity at any immgration counter, with the help of data that was already stored in the microchip.