Passport chips only guaranteed for two years

THE NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE (NAO) published a report saying chips incorporated in British passports only have a two year warranty even though the documents have a 10 year life.

It also warned that the government may face liabilities from intellectual property rights claims owned by contractors.

It also warned that there's insufficient evidence how effective the e-Passports will be, because the ability of readers to cope with large volumes is still largely untested.

It wants the government to negotiate an increase in the warranty period because if chips fail after the two year period it will be taxpayers' money that pays for replacements. The chips, said the NAO, are designed to withstand "reasonable exposure to extremes of temperature, humidity, x-rays, electric and magnetic fields and other environmental factors."

Ten days in Old Taipei for Computex in June with your passport in your very sweaty pocket would be enough to test a chip to its limit, we'd suggest. If the chip fails at a border, the passport is still valid, but the holder gets a letter telling them to contact the issuing authority for a replacement.

Philips Semiconductor was the only supplier expected to get the right kind of security clearance, but the government did not negotiate directly with the firm, but through its printing partner. Because of the "innovative" Philips chip, it only wanted to warranty it for 12 months, originally.

Philips, said the NAO, "holds many of the intellectual property rights" to the chip. The printer of the passports also holds IP rights, and the Identity and Password Service is finding out what this might mean. This service wants to increase the capacity of the chip to 72K to include fingerprints, and while the current 32K chip has enough capacity for your dabs, it couldn't cope with the additions to the operating system.

Over 48 million people - 80% of the population, hold a UK passport and four million e-Passports have so far been issued. The chip holds biographical info a facial image of the person owning the passport. The scheme was introduced at some speed to comply with the US visa waiver programme, which demand passports have a machine readable zone and digital photograph. µ