Biometric Authentication to ensure security in ePassports

Abstract

Biometric passports are widely being employed in most of the countries to certify that the passport and its holder are genuine and to eliminate fraudulent activities like border crossing, passport cloning, fake passports etc. Biometric passports, also called ePassports contain a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip embedded in the passport which carries certain biometric information, along with the information available in the data page of the passport. Currently used ePassports use PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) to authenticate the information stored in the chip. But the protection mechanisms used in this authentication method has some shortcomings like Skimming, Eavesdropping, Clandestine scanning etc. The proposed model will overcome the above issues by authenticating the traveler by their fingerprint (biometric information) and securing the tag information through an irrevocable hash function.