August 30, 2006

New U.S. e-Passport

Beginning August 14, 2006 the Department of State began issuing new tourist (blue cover) Electronic Passport (e-Passport) at the Colorado Passport Agency. Diplomatic and Official e-passports have been issued since December 2005. The U.S. anticipates having all 17 domestic passport agencies issuing e-Passports by the end of 2006. The e-Passports contain either 28 pages or 52 pages, compared to 24 or 48 for older passports. It contains all the information that is on the data page of a current passport. The new passport combines face recognition and contactless chip technology, which will be embedded in the back cover of the passport.

New U.S. Emergency Photo-digital Passport

The State Department will also be issuing a new EPDP (Emergency Photo-Digitized Passport) in addition to the e-Passport. The EPDP is a twelve-page emergency U.S. passport intended to replace the machine-readable and other passports that Foreign Service posts currently issue around the world to Americans who cannot wait to receive a full-validity, domestically-issued passport. They are not E-Passports, but do contain biodata, an image of the bearer, and machine-readable zone which are printed onto a foil located in the blank book.