EU: Smart card passports
01 March 1994
Six of the twelve member states of the European Union have concrete plans to introduce "smart cards" to replace the traditional passport. Most advanced are the French, who will start the introduction of the smart card in 1995 over a planned ten-year period. In Holland an experiment with the "Schiphol Travel Pass" was recently discontinued. About a thousand frequently travelling participants had a smart card which allowed them to clear customs through a dedicated checkpoint, where their fingerprint was compared with the information registered in the card. Schiphol officials declared that this method was too cumbersome. All persons registered with the Aliens department will receive a chipcard shortly which will allow the police to check their identity. The present paper identity card is said to be too vulnerable to tampering.