Holiday Travel Revisited
OK, my posting from last week really got me thinking about the holiday season. Although personally I am not much of a fan of it myself (both of my parents died around this time, a long time ago), I do have to admit, I am looking forward to it this year. Minus, of course, the cold and snow. Hmm, maybe in Christmas in July sounds pretty good after all. Well, anyways, as I was crawling around the web today for things to write about, I came across a news article, which provides to a certain degree, and also sheds some new light, into the status of e-Passports in Europe.
The connection here? Holiday season=heavy travel=quick and speedy travel times. In other words, with the upcoming holiday season coming up, there is some serious effort now on the European Continent to make travel there quick and painless, and make people happy. This particular project is called “BioP@ss”, and here are the details of it: “The BioP@ss project, funded through the EUREKA micro-electronics cluster MEDEA+, has developed advanced chip cards and embedded software for next-generation biometrics-enhanced passports and identity cards as well as access to pan-European public services. Contactless card scanning and very high speed data interfacing will reduce queues at airports and frontier posts while boosting European security. The technology will improve passengers safety while reducing government administration costs and simplifying access to public pan-European electronic services for citizens. The elements are already being incorporated in systems to meet air travel security standards from 2014.” (SOURCE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111014104409.htm).
My Take
OK, yea, the e-Passport is something I have written about countless times before, and is going to be prime editorial in an upcoming editorial in one of my famous Biometrics journal (shameless PR here for me). But, as I perused through this article, there is something that really piqued my interest. Rather than trying to implement new technology to make things go faster, the Europeans are trying (or have found) to discover ways to upgrade their existing ID card infrastructure compatible to the e-Passport scheme in place.
What I am trying to get at it is, yes, new technology to a certain degree will have to be introduced, but any existing infrastructure will not have to ripped apart, and started over again. In other words, the effort here is to upgrade what is already in place (and since technology in the Biometrics world advances very quickly, existing technology could be considered legacy standards).
OK, here is a very good summary of all this: “Some 380 million identity cards are in circulation in the EU's 500 million population. However, security levels must be raised for electronic e-ID cards and passports while also simplifying access to electronic public services for citizens across Europe. The challenge facing the digital security industry was to meet new standards without changing the infrastructure already in use in airports. It was also necessary to speed card reading to cut waiting times and enable access to much more data.” (SOURCE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111014104409.htm).
OK, so how will all of this be done??? Well, there are lot of technicalities involved here, but the long and short is that another Biometrics Vendor, known as “Gemalto” is relying heavily upon the theories and principles which are involved in Cryptography, especially the emerging field known as “Bio-Cryptography”. The constructs are going to use Public Key Infrastructure (also known as PKI), with a prime focus on the use of shared keys and asymmetric cryptography. It may sound extremely complicated, but believe, me it is not. And to make things even more confusing (some humor here), the principles of encryption are being used, in order to mask the communications between and the information/data which is stored on the smart card chip, and the reader which is capturing this deciphering and capturing it (the way things work now, the passenger or traveler merely flashes their card or e-Passport right underneath the reader) this particular data.
This particular Biometrics Vendor is also partnering up with 11 different vendors and consultants in order to make sure that this all is integrated seamlessly and smoothly, so that people traveling through the European Continent this holiday season can get through quickly and smoothly and be with their loved ones. Ultimately, it is hoped that the results of this project can be extrapolated to other public sector applications, for example, “While the initial focus was on e-passports and e-ID cards, applications were also envisaged for health-service access, electronic voting and driving licences.” (SOURCE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111014104409.htm).
Hopefully we can take what has been learned here and use it in the United States, into our own existing infrastructures, without having to waste more money on scrapping legacy systems and rebuilding them. This for sure will be good news in these deficit ridden times.
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