Anti-ID theft passport cover 'preys on fears'

A COMPANY which sells passport covers that claim to protect travellers from identity theft has been accused by the Home Office of preying on ungrounded fears.

Hampshire-based myId is charging customers up to 20 for a cover fitted with technology it says will block criminals from stealing details from the new generation of biometric passports.

Around 20 million of the passports – aimed at improving security by encoding personal data on a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip – have already been issued in the UK as a way of cutting down cross-border crime and illegal immigration.

MyID claims criminals armed with easily available RFID scanners can read and download the information from passports contained in luggage or handbags from a distance to create a cloned document.

But Home Office sources told Scotland on Sunday that officials believed the company was trying to take advantage of travellers' concerns about growing levels of identity theft.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "The data encoded to the chip in the biometric passport is securely stored and contains no more personal data than the information printed on the data page of a passport.

"There is no evidence to suggest anyone's personal data has been stolen from a passport's RFID chip. The passport chip does not have the same communication protocol and therefore it is not physically possible for the chip to be read from the distance suggested."

Although myID does not dispute that there are no known cases of passports being copied using RFID technology, it says it is a very real threat.

Victoria Barrett, the firm's marketing director, said: "The RFID chips in biometric passports hold various different pieces of information.

"People who are technologically minded have managed, at a distance, to read the information on the chip. It acts like a radiowave and sends out a radiowave signal to the chip. With the right technology they can clone the passport that way.

"All they have to do is casually walk past with a handbag or a briefcase, acting like just another traveller at an airport, and if your passport is not protected then they could read that information.

"Identity fraud is such a big issue that once someone has got your details the world is their oyster. They can go on the internet, find out more information about you, and who knows what they might do."

Some researchers have claimed that it is possible to read the chips and produce cloned passports. In tests conducted by Jeroen van Beek, a security researcher at the University of Amsterdam, using his own software, a 40 card reader and two 10 RFID chips, it took less than an hour to clone and manipulate two passport chips to a level at which they were ready to be planted inside fake or stolen paper passports.

In March a security expert in the UK claimed to siphon data off an RFID chip from a passport in a sealed envelope, but the Home Office maintains that even if a biometric passport is cloned, airport scanners will pick up a fake chip.

However, myID claims that although British airport scanners have the technology to identify chips which are not genuine, those in other countries do not.

The company also claims that it is not just travellers who could be vulnerable to con artists with RFID readers.

Barrett said: "A lot of students use passports as proof of age and will take them out in pubs and clubs. All it would take is one person with a scanner in their bag to go around and steal all those identities.

"So this might not just be an issue in terms of travel, but could have far wider consequences. What we are saying is, don't take the risk."

MyID refused to say how many of its passport covers have so far been sold, but claims there has been a lot of interest.

The Government estimates that 4,400 passports are being issued per year based on fraudulent applications, although this would involve all types of fraud and passport thefts.