Today a visa and passport are nearly always both essential when vacationing internationally. These travel documents have been a staple for many years to prevent criminals from traveling the world and immigrants from living unlawfully. New methods of identification, using extremely advanced technology, have emerged and will become either an added security or an alternative to the traditional passport book.
Advancing technology has given birth to biometrics, which is one of the primary things that could replace physical passports. The biometric method measures a person’s face to find a match and pull their profile, and this method prevents passport fraud. It only takes a couple of seconds to make a reading and figure out who the person is due to recent breakthroughs. By utilizing a video camera instead of taking a still shot, the video camera has the capacity to read the face multiple times if required, taking note of different aspects if matches occur to bring up the correct result. Faking the system with one of these devices becomes near impossible, and combining this method with the traditional passport will stop most criminals.
Adding an electronic RFID chip has also been considered for further security within a passport book. This chip is comparable to other near field technologies that transfer personal information when requested wirelessly. Since these chips provide more information than is located in US passports today, they offer a great way to double check the information and add one more measure of security.
The trouble that is faced when creating these new technologies is the capability to keep them secure enough to not be cracked. Advanced technologies always associate with advanced approaches to piracy and programming, so officials have a difficult time determining how to lock down digital technology. These systems could be vulnerable to forgery in the future more than today, but including these instead of using them as replacements just adds one more security feature that criminals have to replicate.
Other technologies that are being designed are e-visas for getting access to other countries. As a way to overcome problems of adaptation, these countries need to determine a standard to use. These devices not only make an effort to increase security for China visas, for example, but also make it less complicated to be identified. It could take years before they replace traditional paper visas, but the day is on its way when cheap technology can be extremely accurate and reliable as well. The advancements in technology lately in addition to the smaller devices being produced has made it easy for security to expand today and in the future. Countries that elect to add digital aspects to their visa and passport services will ultimately become much more safeguarded than countries without.
Travel Document Systems, Inc. is the leading travel agency for visas and US passports. For nearly 30 years we have served travel professionals, tour operators, cruise lines, as well as corporate and individual international travelers. TDS specializes in travel that involves visas for more than one country.
