Passports and visas versus IDs

Abstract

Identification is an extremely important issue in today's world. The need to identify humans, machines, messages and even animals has created demands for a variety of requirements that identification systems must adhere to. While institutions and governments have a large stake in identification schemes and their efficacy, individuals also have a need to identify institutions, machines or other individuals. One of the most widely used schemes for identification is the passport. Passports are used by the world community to enforce various protocols for travel, work and other cooperative ventures. Passports are used too by governments to prevent undesirable individuals from entering their respective countries. The passport is the prime culprit in the inability of countries to control terrorism. To improve the security of identification, it has been proposed that cryptography be used to enhance the security of verifying the identity of an individual. However, most of the proposed cryptography-based electronic IDs are not adequate when used in international identification protocols. In this paper we extend the concept of a cryptographic electronic ID to a system of electronic passports and visas that are superior to existing paper versions with respect to security.