Towards e-Passport Duplicate Enrollment Check in the European Union

Automated border control gates are now being more and more deployed at airports to smooth border crossings with reduced man power and more convenience to the passenger. In order to use these new gates the traveler is required to present an electronic passport (e-Passport or biometric passport). Lots of efforts have been undertaken to improve the security of the infrastructure at borders or by adding various security features to the passport. However, the weakest point in the passport issuance process is the enrolment step for passport applicant including the breeder documents authenticity and the duplicate enrolment check. The goal of duplicate enrolment check is to prevent the issuance of duplicate illegal passports containing possibly fake identities. A solution to this problem needs to be flexible and precise if the solution is meant for large-scale deployments and eventually standardization. This paper describes how a duplicate enrolment check can be realized securely between European Union member states using distributed databases of alphanumeric data and multiple biometric modalities.