A Survey of System Security in Contactless Electronic Passports

TL;DR

This survey reviews the security features of electronic passports, focusing on cryptographic protocols like BAC and EAC, to evaluate their effectiveness in preventing forgery and identity theft.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of first- and second-generation electronic passports and analyzes the cryptographic protocols used for authentication.

Findings

First-generation passports have basic security features.

Second-generation passports incorporate advanced cryptographic protocols.

Cryptographic protocols improve security but have limitations.

Abstract

A traditional paper-based passport contains a Machine- Readable Zone (MRZ) and a Visual Inspection Zone (VIZ). The MRZ has two lines of the holder's personal data, some document data, and verification characters encoded using the Optical Character Recognition font B (OCRB). The encoded data includes the holder's name, date of birth, and other identifying information for the holder or the document. The VIZ contains the holder's photo and signature, usually on the data page. However, the MRZ and VIZ can be easily duplicated with normal document reproduction technology to produce a fake passport which can pass traditional verification. Neither of these features actively verify the holder's identity; nor do they bind the holder's identity to the document. A passport also contains pages for stamps of visas and of country entry and exit dates, which can be easily altered to produce fake permissions and travel records. The electronic passport, supporting authentication using secure credentials on a tamper-resistant chip, is an attempt to improve on the security of the paper-based passport at minimum cost. This paper surveys the security mechanisms built into the firstgeneration of authentication mechanisms and compares them with second-generation passports. It analyzes and describes the cryptographic protocols used in Basic Access Control (BAC) and Extended Access Control (EAC).