IATA sets the standards for the RFID chips and there is every year or two a conference where topics like interoperability, security and new requirements are discussed.

Every RFID chip in every passport has two sections. One section for information which are already printed on the first page of your passport. This section is only protected by a basic access rule. The second section of the RFID chip contains your fingerprints and other biometrics if a country is collecting this information. To access this information the card reader needs a special digital certificate which is created by the issuing country for its passports. Right now the IATA works on the system to distribute these digital certificates between countries on a voluntarily base. So far only the issuing country can access these biometric information. The EU is working to allow access to EU passports by all EU members but this will probably will take another few years before it will work.

So for example: My German passport has my fingerprints stored but only German authorities can access them. If I fly to the United States the immigration officer can only read data like my name, nationality, birth-date etc. but not my fingerprints.

As I said before. The RFID chips are safe compared to today's standards. This however can change in 10 or 20 years and this is in my eyes the only real problem. Encryption algorithms which are unbreakable today like AES could be broken in 10 to 20 years depending on improvements of computer technology.