I think the comment from one Home Office spokesman “It is hard to see why anyone would want to access the information on the chip.” says more about the fundamental lack of understanding of the problems with RFID-enabled passports than anything else.

Whilst the spokesman rightly goes on to mention that the information stored on the RFID chip is exactly the same as that printed on the passport itself, he avoids, either deliebrately or accidentally, the underlying problem: If the passport can be read electronically, that means there’s less need for the actual data printed in the passport to be checked, especially when trying to meet targets for processing travellers.

So, as soon as passport controls are put in place where all that is required is a valid RFID passport, which is not checked, then cloning passports becomes incredibly valuable, as it allows you to travel across borders as someone else, without having to have a very good passport forgery - all you actually need is a clonded RFID chip.

In any place where this type of checking becomes the norm, what’s the likelyhood of being stopped and asked to show a real passport?

Of course, if passport control stations retain human operators, who check that the photograph on the RFID chip matches the person standing in front of them, all someone needs to do is clone the RFID data and exchange the digital photo for a matching one, and you immediately have someone else’s details with your photo, and you can move through passport control quickly and easily.

Still, since it only takes 5 minutes to clone an ePassport now, so I guess you could do it whilst standing in line at the airport and become whomever you like.