Second line
2 -
the passport number;
an internationally agreed code for the
nationality of the holder;
the holder's date of birth and sex;
the date of expiry of the document;
the holder's personal number for those
countries which use identity cards;
a check-digit for added security.
3.
The rest of the data page contains the
photograph of the holder and personal particulars for
visual inspection.
4.
The machine reading technique used is
Optical Character Recognition (OCR). An important
advantage is that all data that can be read by the
machine can also be read by the holder.
5.
The format of the machine readable passport
has the advantage of having all the personal
particulars about the holder on one page instead of
several pages as is the case at present. This will
reduce considerably the time taken for visual
inspection.
There will be no means of adding data to
the passport after issue. As a result of the
technical changes required by machine readability,
forgery will be more difficult to carry out and
easier to detect than is the case with conventional
passports.