Machine readable passports (MRPs) contain information for international travel and are accessed by computers for security. They reduce errors, allow faster processing times, and help prevent passport forgery. The main disadvantage is the cost of printing new passports. Most UN member countries, including the US and UK, use MRPs.
A machine readable passport (MRP) is a type of government document used for international travel. Like traditional passports, MRPs contain information regarding an individual’s nationality and identification. Machine readable passports are accessed or “read” by a computer and are generally considered more secure than older types of passports.
The first machine-readable passport documents were produced in the 1980s. In the mid-2000s, the US government began requiring MRPs for foreign visitors entering the country through the Visa Waiver Program. Most modern passports now use machine readable features. The United Nations has approved the standard format “ICAO Document 9303” for passports used by all member nations.
All the key information in a machine-readable passport is usually found at the bottom of the document and consists of two lines of text. A total of 88 characters are used. MRP details such as the person’s name, passport number and nationality are printed using standardized fonts. This information can be interpreted by a computer using optical character recognition, which scans and recognizes each letter.
One of the main benefits of a machine-readable passport is the reduction of errors. With a traditional passport, individual information must be manually entered into a processing system. This manual entry is prone to errors, especially for travelers with foreign or complex names. Machine readable passports eliminate these errors and allow a computer to access identification details directly.
A machine-readable passport also allows for faster processing times than older document types. The ability to simply scan a passport and instantly access information reduces wait times for travellers. MRP data also helps reduce cases of passport forgery. Customs officials can quickly verify that machine-readable information matches details printed elsewhere in a passport. MRP documents don’t completely eliminate the chances of forgery, but they make illegal alterations of the passport more difficult.
Machine-readable passports are not without their drawbacks. The main disadvantage of an MRP is cost. When a country switches from a traditional passport and requires all citizens to upgrade, millions of new passports may need to be printed. The cost of printing the new document format is often charged to travelers in the form of higher passport fees. Despite the increase in cost, machine-readable passport documents have been adopted by most member countries of the United Nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and many others.
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