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`Thursday, July 05, 2007, 10.13 AM
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`NST Online » Local News
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`2007/07/05
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`E-passport pride of Malaysian technology
`By : Azura Abas
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`KUALA LUMPUR, Thurs:
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`Two years before the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, the United States immigration
`inspectors came across something they had never seen before — a passport with
`a chip embedded in it.
`
`It was a Malaysian passport, which carried a digital photograph and fingerprints of the
`holder.
`
`The world’s first electronic passport, it baffled the US Immigration and Naturalisation
`Service (INS) and its laboratory staff, said author and consultant Neville Cramer.
`
`At the time, he was still serving as special agent in charge of the Immigration and
`Naturalisation Service, under the US Department of Justice.
`
`"Inspectors came to me and said this passport is the finest thing we have ever seen. The
`best in the world," he said in an interview.
`Then two jetliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 2001,
`hijacked by men who used fake passports to enter the US.
`
`The Sept 11 attacks triggered a desperate search by governments around the world for
`the right technology to make travel and identity documents more secure.
`
`In 2003, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) set new standards for
`passports, including the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) microchips.
`
`The Malaysian RFID chip, which allows contactless operations of smart cards, was
`developed by local MSC-status company Iris Corporation Bhd.
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`file://W:\Miscellaneous\E-passport pride of M'sian Technology.htm
`
`IRIS
`EXHIBIT 2012 PAGE 1
`DOJ v. IRIS
`IPR 2016-00497
`
`7/5/2007
` IRIS001659
`
`

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`Page 2 of 4
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`The New Straits Times Online......
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`Despite concerns that the chips could be cloned, information encoded into Malaysian
`passports has so far remained secure. Digital keys stored on each chip made such
`duplication and forgery impossible, according to a company statement last year.
`
`Iris has gone on to supply its technology for smart cards and passports to a number of
`countries, including Turkey and New Zealand.
`
`But almost a decade after Malaysia launched its e-passport, the US, which issued its
`first e-passport early last year, is still trying to get it right.
`
`Cramer, who headed the first INS field test of Malaysia’s e-passport, believes that the
`US should adopt Malaysia’s technology.
`
`"To this day, (the US) has not done it right. The chip stores a photo of the holder but not
`his fingerprints. It is mind-boggling that they have not utilised (Malaysian) technology
`fully," said Cramer, on a recent visit here to meet Home Affairs Ministry officials.
`
`Since retiring in 2002, Cramer has written a book, Fixing the INSanity, on some of the
`causes of America’s immigration problems. He has also started a consultancy called
`Immigration Enforcement Solutions.
`
`When Cramer first came here for the INS field test, the team he led ordered 19
`machines to read Malaysian passports. Within a week, they saw for themselves how well
`the passport’s security features worked.
`
` A
`
` man had presented a Malaysian passport, but the reader showed a woman’s face in
`the digitised photograph contained in the chip, he said.
`
`The photograph on the physical document had been replaced, but the one stored on the
`chip could not be tampered with.
`
`"He confessed that he bought the forged passport from a smuggler."
`
`Sadly, Malaysia lost the chance in 2003 to help set world standards on e-passports, he
`said.
`
`"The government should have gone to the UN, which oversees the ICAO, to tell
`everyone that Malaysia has already done it.
`
`"Malaysians are not getting the credit for what they have accomplished."
`
`Partly, it’s because European and American technology giants cannot accept that a
`small country like Malaysia had beaten them to it.
`
`"So they downplayed what Malaysia has," said Cramer.
`
`Indeed, Malaysia is well ahead of the rest of the world.
`
`E-passports, he said, are the only way to speed up clearance times at immigration points
`and border controls, especially with air travel on the rise around the world.
`
`"The world has to start embracing the use of e-passports."
`
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`file://W:\Miscellaneous\E-passport pride of M'sian Technology.htm
`
`IRIS
`EXHIBIT 2012 PAGE 2
`DOJ v. IRIS
`IPR 2016-00497
`
`7/5/2007
` IRIS001660