E-passport reader option for keyboards can also be retro-fitted
Reading, UK, January, 2008 - Providing a low-cost migration to e-passport reading capability on the company’s existing ATB42x keyboards, and available as a factory-fitted option for new keyboards, the EID42x e-passport reader from Access retrieves encoded data from e-passports that use embedded, contactless microchips. The EID42x is robust and tamper-proof, and is USB powered for easy connectivity without an external power supply. It accepts travel documents of standard sizes from ID-1 contactless cards to ID-3 sized e-passports. The reader is easy to use and the position of the passport is not critical in order to achieve accurate reading. The EID42x accepts all e-passports, including US passports that have additional embedded security features such as aluminium foil protection.
The chips on the new passports store facial images and other biometric data such as fingerprint and iris scans as a way of providing increased national and global security, and combating identity theft. The EID42x module is compliant with the interoperability standards ICAO 9303 2005 and ISO14443, which include an encryption technique designed to prevent unauthorised scanning of the data stored by the chip. The new e-passports are already being introduced by many national passport agencies.
The ATB42x keyboard family is widely used in airline passenger check-in and boarding gates in North America and Europe. It is a compact keyboard with an integrated 4-track magnetic swipe reader (MSR) and dual-illumination OCR reader. The MSR reader performs bi-directional reading of ticket and boarding pass coupons and ISO encoded credit card data. An auxiliary RS232 port is also provided to connect a 2D bar code imager.
The EID42x can also be attached to Access’ OCR32x standalone optical character readers.
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