The Times: Cloned e-passports fiasco renews calls for £ 4.7bn ID card scheme to be axed

[Roland Perry]

In article <00f801c8f899$0cc71ec0$7f7fa8c0@Jinja>, James Firth 
<james2@jfirth.net> writes
>"After The Times disclosed that new passports could be cloned and
>manipulated in minutes and would then be accepted as genuine

I don't really follow the earlier assertion that the batch of stolen 
passports was "worthless" (without the chip being properly programmed). 
Who has a reader for them anyway?

The last return flight I went on, although my passport was checked by 
immigration officials each end who might have, the airlines who are 
supposed to check that the right people are getting on the plane [1] 
failed at both ends. At the departing gate the girl didn't look at my 
passport, coming back it wasn't even opened.

[1] Reporting details of passengers in advance is useless if different 
people get on board.
-- 
Roland Perry