Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: After Nagpur and Bhubaneswar, the Regional Passport Office in Goa has started issuing e-passports on a pilot basis to civilians.
This new e-passport combines both paper and electronic components, including a special embedded chip that stores important data about the passport holder.
With the soft launch, the Regional Office intends to check on how the embedded chip, biometric data collection, and passport readers work. Officials are also looking for any potential issues or glitches.
An ePassport is a combined paper and electronic passport with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Chip and an antenna embedded as an inlay of passport that contains the personal particulars and biometric information of the passport holder.
The ePassport will be visually identifiable as small additional gold colour symbol printed below the front cover of the passport.
The major benefit of the ePassport comes with an enhanced ability to maintain the integrity of passport holder’s data.
The ePassport will have the data in printed form on the booklet, as well as digitally signed in the electronic chip, which can be securely authenticated by immigration officials globally; thus, safeguarding the passport from forgery, and potential fraudulent activities like fake passports, while confirming the genuineness at border controls.
The underlying technology supporting the security of the ePassport is the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) solution which is the foundation for safeguarding sensitive information and confirming the integrity and origin of the personal and biometric data stored on the chip within the ePassport.
All Passports issued by Govt of India will continue to remain valid till their validity expiry date. As and when a respective Passport Office is technically enabled for issuance of ePassport, the citizens applying under that passport office will get the ePassport. The phase wise roll out of ePassport covering all Passport Offices across India may take few months.
