Though 70 per cent of Canadians have passports, 82 per cent are unaware that the electronic documents are imminent, according to a survey done for Passport Canada.

By Vito Pilieci

As Canada prepares to roll out new electronic passports next year, experts warn the technology is far from perfect and will do little to deter terrorists from crossing our borders.

Adam Laurie, a British computer security researcher, has been pointing to the flaws in ePassport technologies for the past five years.

The new passports use radio frequency ID chips to store information about the traveller that can be used by border officials to help verify the person’s identity.

In one of his more famous demonstrations, Laurie in 2008 created a passport for Elvis Presley, and scanned the document at an automated passport scanner in an airport in Amsterdam. The passport was accepted by the machine and a smiling picture of The King was displayed.

“I think adding the biometric chip to the passport doesn’t make them any more secure,” said Laurie, who is also the director of Aperture Labs Ltd., a security consultancy. “I would say they (governments) should look very carefully at their deployment. … The implementation of the system is poor and that means that the security of it is completely undermined.”

Laurie says that for as little as $100, a person could buy the equipment needed to clone the information on an ePassport. Software to make the task easier is available for free on the Internet.

Although changing the information on the chip takes a little more technical knowledge, Laurie said it can be done and border crossing officials will not be able to spot the tampering.

Adding the RFID chip to a fake passport would be no more than a speed bump to counterfeiters, added Laurie.

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Tags: Canada, Elvis Presley, ePassport, Passport, RFID

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