Thai Govt Plans To Issue E-passports

[george]

Govt plans to issue e-passports

BANGKOK: -- The government has planned to issue electronic passports for Thais in the near future.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Surakiat Sathirathai, unveiled that the government would soon issue the microchip-implanted passports for Thais who want to travel abroad.

The electronic passport has been an issue for talks between leaders of countries seeking for common understanding on the importance of such hi-tech passports, including Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Mr. Surakiat said.

Moreover, the International Civil Aviation Organization, regulating world civil aviation, is drafting new regulations concerning the universal use of the hi-tech passports, in which microchips will be loaded with personal information enabling each country to accurately identify passport holders.

The Information and Communications Technology and the Interior Ministries will jointly work out on the project, he said.

The government is going to outsource a private hi-tech company to design, and implant the microchips into blank polymer passports before personal information of each holder is later loaded.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the e-passports have been issued to some senior government officials as the pilot project in June.

-- TNA 2004-08-03