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Fake passports - AIM's solution
Faked British Passports and identity theft of the kind associated with the recent murder of a Hamas official in Dubai are preventable, claims one of Britain's leading technology trade associations.
AIM UK, the non-commercial trade body for the automatic identification and data capture industry, says that natural feature identification which takes a "finger print" of a document's fibres would make forgery of Passports and other documents virtually impossible.
"The use of faked British Passports has caused outrage and raised serious concerns about fraudulent use, forgery and identity theft. The fact that fake Passports are being produced and are passing scrutiny suggests inherent flaws in the documents and the systems that handle them," said Prof. Anthony Furness, AIM UK's technical director.
However, an emerging identification technology - natural feature identification - could provide a solution, added Prof. Furness, a leading contributor to European Commission projects on identification and location technologies. "Natural feature identification is similar in a number of ways to finger printing except that it involves taking a "finger print" of a document's fibres. Like human finger prints, these are unique so a fake is easily detected. To a high degree of statistical confidence these natural fibre "finger prints" can be taken from any pages of the document and distinguished from any other Passport."
Linking this technique to appropriate biometric profiles would provide a highly effective defence against forgery, fraudulent use and identity theft, says AIM UK, which is calling upon Foreign Secretary David Miliband to open a debate on improved protection for British Passport holders.
