The demonstration is bad news for the UK government, which is currently running a GBP415 million scheme in which passports are loaded with information such as iris patterns, finger prints and facial scans. The government’s plan to use the same technology for a national ID card could also be jeopardized.
Luke Grunwald, a security consultant with DN-Systems in Germany, demonstrated how data stored in an RFID tag in the passport could be transferred onto bank chips which could be implanted in forged passports.
The whole passport design is totally brain damaged, Mr Grunwald said. From my point of view all of these RFID passports are a huge waste of money. They’re not increasing security at all.
US officials plan to start issuing RFID in passports this October.
