The Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said on Thursday April 7th 2022 that the Indian government plans to issue E-Passports by the end of 2022. The new passport scheme will be a combined paper and electronic passport with an embedded RFID tag.

“The passport’s critical information will be printed on its data page as well as stored in the chip. The characteristics of the document and the chip are specified in International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) document 9303,”

V Muraleedharan, Minister of State for External Affairs

The passports will be produced by the Indian Security Press which has already tendered for the RFID tags needed for the passports. It is not clear what technology will be implemented, it is likely to be a High Frequency RFID technology, but the press release has not stated exactly what security systems will be used for their RFID technology. It has been stated by the Indian government that the documents will follow  International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) document 9303 which outlines the specification for Machine readable documents and gives some indication on the direction of travel they are taking to ensure that it meets international standards.

The passport technology is currently being tested for security and the Indian Government has stated that they will only launch after establishing that the security protocol protects the individual passport holder and the wider security of the state.

We are cognisant to the danger of the skimming vulnerability. In fact, it is one of the reasons why the sample passports are being tested to ensure their safety

S Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister

While the persons critical information will still be printed on the paper document, the RFID will link to an electronic passport or a database of information about the passport holder.

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