U.S. edict ignites e-passport rush

摘要

Paris — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will host a testing event for electronic passports featuring biometric data next week, opening a can of technological worms that will tax the ingenuity, patience and diplomacy of dozens of national governments, chip vendors and reader manufacturers. Foremost among the questions raised by the three-day meeting in West Virginia is whether the world is ready to meet even the ex-tended deadline—a little more than one year from now—that the U. S. government has set for 27 visa-waiver countries to issue biometrically enabled, machine-readable passports if their citizens are to visit the United States.