Originally Posted by
WillCAD
1) Not all passports are chipped
2) Those that are often have the chips burned out intentionally
3) There are not electronic readers (or for that matter, electricity) at every single border crossing, port, airport gate, and customs station in the entire world
4) Even if there were, there is no database of every single passport ever issued by every country in the world which can electronically track their use and wherabouts, and alert international authorities when a stolen passport is used
1,2) All (or at least effectively all) currently-valid passports have a machine-readable OCR data zone, whether or not they have RFID chips as well (or if the chips are functional). I did have one valid through 2008 that was literally
hand-written, but its replacement included an RFID chip as well as the MRZ.
3) This is true, but KUL has electricity and, I suspect, at least some OCR readers.
4) Also true, but as noted in this thread there is an Interpol database that contains information on many stolen passports, including these two.