I agree. I used a non-chipped US passport up through last year and the fact it didn't have an RFID chip wasn't an issue. I think it was late 2006 when new US passports went out with the first generation chips so that means non-chipped passports will be around until late 2016 and maybe early 2017 and are certainly valid. I also figure chips fail through no fault of the user and while there may be some I haven't heard of people being denied travel or entry because of a bad chip. Now there's the guy on YouTube who decided to disable the chip in his US passport by microwaving it. The RFID chip non-functioning may not be an issue but the slightly melted back cover and the burnt pages are probably going to get noticed and may be problematic.

I never claimed it voided the passport though (tho it does if you deliberately damage the chip - you're tampering with the document - it doesn't if it accidentally breaks). I claimed it was a silly act of civil disobedience that only causes you hassles. At the LEAST, even if the officer doesn't care a bit about the non-functioning chip, it means you have to speak to an officer instead of going through the e-passport gates.

A US passport is not invalidated if the material damage -- accidental or deliberate -- to the passport is limited to nothing more than a disabling of the RFID functionality.

Some people have a right to be admitted into a country even though they don't hold citizenship in that country. And a non-functioning RFID in a US passport does not invalidate a US passport or prejudice admissibility even to other countries, whether or not the person has a right to be admitted.

Sure you could, at least in recent years. My current passport (issued in 2008) has three extra sets of pages in it.

I'll take your word for this, there are presumably some corner cases where it's true.

It's up to the country in question to decide how much damage to a passport is sufficient for it not to be acceptable. In practice, a non-functioning RFID is extremely unlikely to present a problem, but you can't make a categorical statement that it _won't_ prejudice admissibility.

One, GUWonder you totally ignored my point that at the least damaging the chip will force you to interact with immigration officers which is a huge downside on its own. Two, it's a criminal offence to damage government property. You don't own your passport.

It may be a criminal violation to damage a US passport, but sometimes -- most often at that -- it isn't.

With or without a functioning chip, when a foreigner is but a guest to a country where he/she shows up with a passport from a country that is from a foreign immigration control region, questioning will still be a possibility; the questioning may be even more likely for the visitor when automated entry covers a large proportion of the admissible non-visitors. The reason there has been a push for automation as of late has been in large part to free up resources to question/search more visitors more extensively without delaying things way more than is already the case.

I certainly can make a categorical statement, as I did. The matter has come up in various intergovernmental discussions, and I've been intimately and rather extensively aware of how matters are handled when questions of US passport validity take place abroad (i.e. at non-US ports of entry). The non-functioning of the RFID is not a sufficient condition to assume that the passport is invalid so as to prejudice admissibility. The instructions from State is that while the chip is a security feature, its failure to function is not an indication of a fraudulent document and does not make the passport any less valid for travel and the US national should be processed as if the person had a passport without a chip. Those countries that went with the ICAO and other agreements about passport standardization and epassports agreed to this.

Indeed. I've even supplied the State Department's own guidance on this matter in a related thread on FT.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/23809119-post152.html

One, two or three sets, routinely seen. Four sets allowed only under "emergency" situations.

A long, long time ago I got over the thrill of air travel. It's a necessity for work and pleasure so I'm determined to make it as easy for myself as possible. I realize it's not a totally popular view here with some but I'm very much into getting through whatever the non-flying part as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Disabling the RFID chip in my passport doesn't seem like it would support that approach and isn't on my list of must-do's.

It (disabled RFID) is a rather pointless thing to have happen or want to have happen, especially if using that iPhone or Samsung smartphone as much as possible and using the Internet in rather ordinary ways.

That's not what you said earlier. You made the statement that "a non-functioning RFID in a US passport does not...prejudice admissibility even to other countries."

There's a big difference between saying (as you did before) that a broken RFID can have no negative impact on someone's admissibility, and (as you say now) that a broken RFID alone isn't sufficient to assume the passport is invalid.

In a case, for example, where the data page is damaged to a degree, but the RFID is intact and can be read, the chances of the passport being viewed as valid are clearly higher than if the data page has the same degree of damage, AND the RFID is non-functional.

That's not clear, as it definitely isn't generally true; there have already been situations -- already considered by me prior to this -- which have made it quite clear to me that it doesn't necessarily work that way and shouldn't.

The position of the epassport issuing parties and those agreeing to accept related passport standards for issuance and/or admissibility considerations is that the RFID's non-functional nature is not to prejudice admissibility as it doesn't make the passport any more or less valid than a comparable passport with a functioning RFID.

If you have any real world examples of a non-functioning RFID in a US passport prejudicing admissibility, I am sure that I am not the only one interested in the details of such.

Seems to me that most people don't think about or know whether their passport RFID chip is working or not. It would be a major bummer to fly, like I am in June, from my home in the US to Venice, Italy only to have Italian authorities turn me back because my chip wasn't working. Barring some easy and readily available way to check on the chip, along with a requirement that it be working, I can't see this happening. Comparing my non-chipped to my chipped passport there aren't any significant differences in the visible information. The point being if the visible information on the old passport was good enough in the past then the same information on the new one ought to still work. To me this is really a separate issue from the deliberate disabling of the chip, especially if it is done in a way that it damages the passport and raises the attention of border/immigration officials.

Indeed.

My US passports get used a huge amount for entry into and exit out of the Schengen Zone (and otherwise), and I have no clue or care about whether the RFID chips are still functioning or not. I do suspect my passports have a high probability of having non-functioning chips given how often and how I transport them, but I'm not sure when (if ever) the RFIDs in them were working. I don't know anyone who has cared on a personal basis to make sure the RFIDs in their own passports are still functional.

I would be surprised if even those suspected of traveling without official cover as part of clandestine services for governmental spy agencies have that (RFID check) on a checklist of things to do with their passports. Then again, the young bucks and does tend to be sort of more sloppy.

You can easily read the chip yourself to verify it is working, the eMRTD standard including how to decrypt BAC is public knowledge. In the UK you can also stop by the Passport Office and they will verify that your chip works and let you see the data stored on it and how it works.