High Tech Passports
My Question: How do I get one of these???
From www.abc.com
When in Rome, Americans had better hold on to their passports. That’s because more U.S. passports are stolen at the Rome Central Train Station than anywhere else in Europe, according to a State Department anti-fraud official.
But the State Department is now moving to fight increasingly sophisticated thieves by making American passports a little more high-tech. Easy to Fake, Hard to Catch
Thieves stole almost15,000 U.S. passports
from Americans traveling abroad last year.
The original passport holders’ photographs are sliced out of the passports and replaced
with new faces. One official estimated that about three-quarters of the high-quality
“photo-substituted” passports slip past border control agents unnoticed.
The new Passport replaces the traditional
photograph with a digitized image of the passport holder on the page. And the familiar blue booklet now boasts a security film
interlaced with a large colorful hologram and microline printing over the digitized photograph.
The State Department is phasing in the new technology and expects that all of its domestic passport agencies will be
using digital technique by the end of next year.
Also: does this mean I have to replace my current passport? It's a good idea. CATMAN