JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Warner: e-passports by 2017 (with VIDEO)

There'll be no more lines says min­is­ter

by

20121205

With just the swipe of a card, T&T cit­i­zens can be al­lowed to en­ter a for­eign coun­try. This will hap­pen when the Gov­ern­ment moves to in­tro­duce the e-pass­port, or dig­i­tal pass­port, by 2017. Mak­ing the state­ment yes­ter­day was Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain.

He was speak­ing at the launch of a three-day sub-re­gion­al work­shop on ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing in trav­el-doc­u­ment se­cu­ri­ty and iden­ti­ty man­age­ment, which brought to­geth­er var­i­ous Caribbean coun­tries. He said since T&T in­tro­duced the in­te­grat­ed bor­der-man­age­ment sys­tem in 2007, there has been no re­port­ed cas­es of tam­per­ing with the ma­chine-read­able pass­port.

"The In­ter­na­tion­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ICAO) has is­sued a man­date to all coun­tries to ful­ly op­er­a­tionalise e-pass­port use by 2017. "I am ad­vised T&T should get an ini­tial pi­lot roll-out by 2015. This pi­lot roll-out can be done, just as some oth­er coun­tries have, with diplo­mats and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials first," Warn­er said.

While us­ing e-pass­ports could in­crease the ef­fi­cien­cy both for the Gov­ern­ment and cit­i­zens, there were oth­er fac­tors which the Gov­ern­ment must con­sid­er, he point­ed out. The e-pass­port, he added, would elim­i­nate the process of in­di­vid­u­als hav­ing to join a line to ap­pear be­fore an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer.

"The in­di­vid­ual sim­ply swipes his e-pass­port and looks in­to the kiosk, which reads the bio-da­ta in the e-pass­port chip and con­firms the iden­ti­ty of the per­son, us­ing fa­cial-recog­ni­tion tech­nol­o­gy," Warn­er said. How­ev­er, he said, it al­so would mean there would be no need for so many im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers.

They would there­fore have to be de­ployed else­where to per­form oth­er tasks re­lat­ed to bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, Warn­er said. Cost was an­oth­er fac­tor which the Gov­ern­ment had to take in­to ac­count. "There are chal­lenges to the e-pass­port roll-out. There is a lengthy cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process and we will have to look at the spa­tial re­quire­ments as well as hu­man re­source is­sues, such as re­train­ing, re-tool­ing and skill en­hance­ment.

Pass­port changes for bet­ter bor­der con­trol

"We al­so have to con­sid­er that the base book for an e-pass­port costs five times as much as a base book for a ma­chine-read­able pass­port. There­fore the cost of an e-pass­port would be high­er," Warn­er said.

What is e-pass­port

A bio­met­ric pass­port, al­so known as an e-pass­port or a dig­i­tal pass­port, is a com­bined pa­per and elec­tron­ic pass­port that con­tains bio­met­ric in­for­ma­tion that can be used to au­then­ti­cate the iden­ti­ty of trav­ellers. It us­es con­tact­less smart card tech­nol­o­gy, in­clud­ing a mi­cro­proces­sor chip (com­put­er chip) and an­ten­na (for both pow­er to the chip and com­mu­ni­ca­tion) em­bed­ded in the front or back cov­er, or cen­tre page, of the pass­port.

The pass­port's crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion is both print­ed on the da­ta page of the pass­port and stored in the chip. Pub­lic Key In­fra­struc­ture (PKI) is used to au­then­ti­cate the da­ta stored elec­tron­i­cal­ly in the pass­port chip, mak­ing it ex­pen­sive and dif­fi­cult to forge when all se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms are ful­ly and cor­rect­ly im­ple­ment­ed.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

Isaiah Cumberbatch, better known as Rodey the Entertainer, is a popular comedian and performer.

Isaiah Cumberbatch, better known as Rodey the Entertainer, is a popular comedian and performer.

Percival Arthur Sukhbir

Isaiah Cumberbatch, better known as Rodey the Entertainer, is a popular comedian and performer.

Isaiah Cumberbatch, better known as Rodey the Entertainer, is a popular comedian and performer.

Percival Arthur Sukhbir

Rodey the Entertainer: A decade of laughter and love

Yesterday
Stephen Boodoo, a proud father of two daughters—seven-year-old Skylar and four-year-old Seanna—is a welding inspector from Penal. He shared, “Father’s Day means having two beautiful daughters and waking up every day to them saying, ‘Love you, Daddy.’” “Becoming a father changed my life in many ways. With fatherhood came greater responsibility—and even greater love. The best part of having two girls is the constant love and kisses I get every single day.”

Stephen Boodoo, a proud father of two daughters—seven-year-old Skylar and four-year-old Seanna—is a welding inspector from Penal. He shared, “Father’s Day means having two beautiful daughters and waking up every day to them saying, ‘Love you, Daddy.’” “Becoming a father changed my life in many ways. With fatherhood came greater responsibility—and even greater love. The best part of having two girls is the constant love and kisses I get every single day.”

RISHI RAGOONATH

Stephen Boodoo, a proud father of two daughters—seven-year-old Skylar and four-year-old Seanna—is a welding inspector from Penal. He shared, “Father’s Day means having two beautiful daughters and waking up every day to them saying, ‘Love you, Daddy.’” “Becoming a father changed my life in many ways. With fatherhood came greater responsibility—and even greater love. The best part of having two girls is the constant love and kisses I get every single day.”

Stephen Boodoo, a proud father of two daughters—seven-year-old Skylar and four-year-old Seanna—is a welding inspector from Penal. He shared, “Father’s Day means having two beautiful daughters and waking up every day to them saying, ‘Love you, Daddy.’” “Becoming a father changed my life in many ways. With fatherhood came greater responsibility—and even greater love. The best part of having two girls is the constant love and kisses I get every single day.”

RISHI RAGOONATH

Honouring our dads: Happy Father’s Day

Yesterday
Kent Western and his wife, Anna, with their sons, Talon, left, Axel, front, and Eric.

Kent Western and his wife, Anna, with their sons, Talon, left, Axel, front, and Eric.

Antony Scully

Kent Western and his wife, Anna, with their sons, Talon, left, Axel, front, and Eric.

Kent Western and his wife, Anna, with their sons, Talon, left, Axel, front, and Eric.

Antony Scully

TSTT CEO Kent Western raising men, leading with love and purpose

Yesterday
Caretakers and supervisors for the Credo Home for Boys, Alwin Hunte, left, and Makemba Whitley.

Caretakers and supervisors for the Credo Home for Boys, Alwin Hunte, left, and Makemba Whitley.

ROGER JACOB

Caretakers and supervisors for the Credo Home for Boys, Alwin Hunte, left, and Makemba Whitley.

Caretakers and supervisors for the Credo Home for Boys, Alwin Hunte, left, and Makemba Whitley.

ROGER JACOB

Fathers by choice: The men who raise forgotten boys

Yesterday