Passport renewal, what you need to know about securing your new ePassport.
When undertaking a Passport Renewal you should be aware of protecting your data held within the new ePassports.
Passport Renewal
Most countries since the late 1990’s have been implementing ePassports or biometric passports as they are often referred too. These ePassports will most probably be your next passport renewal if you haven’t already got one.
These ePassports contain a micro-chip holding your personal identity data and a Radio Frequency identification (RFID) antenna that allows a RFID reader to wirelessly read and transmit the data contained on the ePassports micro-chip.
This RFID technology is vulnerable to being hacked, so don’t leave your personal identity data contained within your ePassport to chance.
To discover why ARMOURCARD offers better Passport protection go here
Don’t just believe us, do the research yourself.
There have been a lot of stories and articles about the vulnerabilities surrounding the ePassports and how easy they are to hack. An example recently was written in the prominent UK newspaper the Daily Mail^, showing how the UK passport was hacked within 4 hours of it been released.
Source: ^Daily Mail UK Hacked ePassport article
Useful Passport Renewal links
Australian Passport Renewal
USA Passport Renewal
Canada Passport Renewal
UK Passport Renewal
Ireland Passport Renewal
There are two sides to this ePassport vulnerability story.
On the one hand you have governments who have invested millions of dollars rolling out RFID technology and stating that they have taken adequate steps to encrypt the data held within the ePassports.
On the other hand you have the hacking community who actively show how vulnerable RFID technology is regardless of encryption (as many stipulate that encryption can be un-encrypted its just a matter of time).
It’s big business for criminals to gain passport data for identity theft
With identity theft the fastest growing crime in the USA and the most reported crime according the annual Federal Trade Commission report for 13 years in a row.
Identity theft has become big business for criminals. So why leave the security of your passport data to chance?
Who to believe?
We were not satisfied that the security measures taken to protect our personal data was enough and just did not want to risk our ePassport being compromised. With the documented accounts of ePassports being compromised by hackers there where just to many to leave our personal data to chance. That is why we developed ARMOURCARD.
Active ePassport protection
ARMOURCARD offers active RFID protection for your ePassports, simply put you place ARMOURCARD in with your ePassports and when an RFID reader tries to communicate with the micro-chips in your passport ARMOURCARD instantly boots up and jams the RFID signal so no communication is transmitted.