Skip to main content
expand this answer with info on data-sharing agreements, endorsement pages, name of holder on dg11
Source Link
ave
  • 2k
  • 13
  • 20
  • DG3 (Encoded Finger(s)), DG4 (Encoded Eye(s)). This information usually requires Extended Access Control to access due to the sensitive nature of the data, which may not be availablerequires bilateral collaboration between country that issued the passport and any country that wants to all countries you visitaccess it, and as such is unlikely to be read from your passport by anyone but the issuing country. I've not seen any cases of DG4 (Encoded Eye(s)) being used, but many countries include DG3 (Encoded Finger(s)) if the person gave fingerprints when applying for their passport.
  • DG11 (Additional Personal Detail(s)) can contain many additional details, including but not limited to Name of Holder, Place of Birth, Address, Profession, or even an image of Proof of Citizenship (though I've never seen that one in the wild). Some passports (Turkey, Belgium, France etc) include this info.
    • The Name of Holder included in this section is Unicode, with a length limit of 99 bytes, allowing for most if not all names to be represented correctly in the chip data (unlike the one in DG1, which is ASCII-latinized with a 39 character limit).
  • DG12 (Additional Document Detail(s)) can contain information like Date of Issue, Issuing Authority, etc. This information is also provided on some passports (Turkey, Belgium, etc).
  • As the files are immutable for security reasons, your passport does not and cannot store your travel history. Individual governments, however, likely keep databases with your travel history and can query these with the information present on your passport.
    • There's also various countries that have data-sharing agreements about travelers, so a country you're visiting for the first time may already know your travel history involving some other countries (e.g. US and Canada have an information sharing treaty, and EU's EES (when it finally comes out) will record travels of non-EU citizens in EU, and make it available to all EU countries).
  • There's no official way to encode marital status, though it may be encoded as part of title in DG11 or as an optional detail in DG13. It could also be written on the passport's endorsements page.
  • Your address at the time of document initialization may be stored on the document itself on DG11. While I don't know if Spain does this, I know that some other countries does this.

Various countries choose to put various different things in the Endorsement/Observations page, which is easier to view for all, but is strictly speaking not the "Main Page", so I'll add a bit on that as well. As this can be on the back sometimes, it could be easy to miss.

UK, to my knowledge, is one of the countries that actively uses this. UK puts your other citizenships (if your name doesn't match them), clarifies that you're not a lord but that you changed your names to include "Lord", states that you're actually a Lord, Doctor, Judge, etc, and probably various other things.

  • DG3 (Encoded Finger(s)), DG4 (Encoded Eye(s)). This information usually requires Extended Access Control to access due to the sensitive nature of the data, which may not be available to all countries you visit. I've not seen any cases of DG4 (Encoded Eye(s)) being used, but many countries include DG3 (Encoded Finger(s)) if the person gave fingerprints when applying for their passport.
  • DG11 (Additional Personal Detail(s)) can contain many additional details, including but not limited to Name of Holder, Place of Birth, Address, Profession, or even an image of Proof of Citizenship (though I've never seen that one in the wild). Some passports (Turkey, Belgium, France etc) include this info.
  • DG12 (Additional Document Detail(s)) can contain information like Date of Issue, Issuing Authority, etc. This information is also provided on some passports (Turkey, Belgium, etc).
  • As the files are immutable for security reasons, your passport does not and cannot store your travel history. Individual governments, however, likely keep databases with your travel history and can query these with the information present on your passport.
  • There's no official way to encode marital status, though it may be encoded as part of title in DG11 or as an optional detail in DG13.
  • Your address at the time of document initialization may be stored on the document itself on DG11. While I don't know if Spain does this, I know that some other countries does this.
  • DG3 (Encoded Finger(s)), DG4 (Encoded Eye(s)). This information usually requires Extended Access Control to access due to the sensitive nature of the data, which requires bilateral collaboration between country that issued the passport and any country that wants to access it, and as such is unlikely to be read from your passport by anyone but the issuing country. I've not seen any cases of DG4 (Encoded Eye(s)) being used, but many countries include DG3 (Encoded Finger(s)) if the person gave fingerprints when applying for their passport.
  • DG11 (Additional Personal Detail(s)) can contain many additional details, including but not limited to Name of Holder, Place of Birth, Address, Profession, or even an image of Proof of Citizenship (though I've never seen that one in the wild). Some passports (Turkey, Belgium, France etc) include this info.
    • The Name of Holder included in this section is Unicode, with a length limit of 99 bytes, allowing for most if not all names to be represented correctly in the chip data (unlike the one in DG1, which is ASCII-latinized with a 39 character limit).
  • DG12 (Additional Document Detail(s)) can contain information like Date of Issue, Issuing Authority, etc. This information is also provided on some passports (Turkey, Belgium, etc).
  • As the files are immutable for security reasons, your passport does not and cannot store your travel history. Individual governments, however, likely keep databases with your travel history and can query these with the information present on your passport.
    • There's also various countries that have data-sharing agreements about travelers, so a country you're visiting for the first time may already know your travel history involving some other countries (e.g. US and Canada have an information sharing treaty, and EU's EES (when it finally comes out) will record travels of non-EU citizens in EU, and make it available to all EU countries).
  • There's no official way to encode marital status, though it may be encoded as part of title in DG11 or as an optional detail in DG13. It could also be written on the passport's endorsements page.
  • Your address at the time of document initialization may be stored on the document itself on DG11. While I don't know if Spain does this, I know that some other countries does this.

Various countries choose to put various different things in the Endorsement/Observations page, which is easier to view for all, but is strictly speaking not the "Main Page", so I'll add a bit on that as well. As this can be on the back sometimes, it could be easy to miss.

UK, to my knowledge, is one of the countries that actively uses this. UK puts your other citizenships (if your name doesn't match them), clarifies that you're not a lord but that you changed your names to include "Lord", states that you're actually a Lord, Doctor, Judge, etc, and probably various other things.

Bounty Ended with 500 reputation awarded by lambshaanxy
Source Link
ave
  • 2k
  • 13
  • 20

ePassports are a subset of eMRTDs (Electronic Machine Readable Travel Documents).

The data that can be stored on them is governed by ICAO 9303 (specifically part 10 and 11). Most of the data that it allows to be stored is optional, and only required data is also printed on eMRTDs' identity pages.

From what I've seen, the data that's on eMRTDs varies greatly between country and country, and can even vary between different types of passports (such as between Regular Passports and Special Passports).

Even in the EU, there's a great variety in the sets of data that's encoded in the passports, however, in some cases I've seen countries share the same set of data (Belgium and France, iirc).

The list of files (rather, "data groups") supported by ICAO 9303 can be seen below:

List of files in ICAO 9303

Out of the ~15 types of supported data groups, only 2 are required, and these are just the information that also is visible on the identity page of your passport: DG1 and DG2.

DG5 and DG7 are optional, but they represent data that's also visible on the identity page.

  • DG1 (Details Encoded in MRZ) is just the data on the MRZ (Machine Readable Zone), which is also printed on the identity page of the passport.
  • DG2 (Encoded Face) contains a JPEG or JPEG2000 file containing your face, which is also printed on the identity page. In some cases (like in UK passports), DG2 may also contain certain information like location of eyes.
  • DG5 (Displayed Portrait) is rarely used, and matches DG2 in all cases I saw.
  • DG7 (Displayed Signature or Usual Mark) is used by some countries (Belgium etc) and includes a JPEG/JPEG2000 file of the signature on passport.

As for commonly included information that's not visible on the identity page:

  • DG3 (Encoded Finger(s)), DG4 (Encoded Eye(s)). This information usually requires Extended Access Control to access due to the sensitive nature of the data, which may not be available to all countries you visit. I've not seen any cases of DG4 (Encoded Eye(s)) being used, but many countries include DG3 (Encoded Finger(s)) if the person gave fingerprints when applying for their passport.
  • DG11 (Additional Personal Detail(s)) can contain many additional details, including but not limited to Name of Holder, Place of Birth, Address, Profession, or even an image of Proof of Citizenship (though I've never seen that one in the wild). Some passports (Turkey, Belgium, France etc) include this info.
  • DG12 (Additional Document Detail(s)) can contain information like Date of Issue, Issuing Authority, etc. This information is also provided on some passports (Turkey, Belgium, etc).

The files on eMRTDs get write-locked after the initialization process. That means that they cannot be modified after the document has been issued.

These files are all hashed, and these hashes are then signed and stored on a PKCS#11 certificate on the chip (on a file called "Security Object"), allowing detecting counterfeit eMRTDs with fake or tampered information.

All files (except for those specifying authentication parameters) require authentication to be accessed. Most authentication schemes (BAC and PACE) require document's expiry, birthday and document number to derive the keys to authenticate. This is why passport readers at border control have to read the MRZ before they can read the chip.

Some countries (like Germany and Turkey) offer additional functionality on eMRTDs, though usually these are on eIDs and not on ePassports. These are usually country-specific and are not as widely deployed.


To answer your example questions:

  • As the files are immutable for security reasons, your passport does not and cannot store your travel history. Individual governments, however, likely keep databases with your travel history and can query these with the information present on your passport.
  • There's no official way to encode marital status, though it may be encoded as part of title in DG11 or as an optional detail in DG13.
  • Your address at the time of document initialization may be stored on the document itself on DG11. While I don't know if Spain does this, I know that some other countries does this.

The only way to know what exactly is encoded in your passport is to read it.

There's a number of mobile applications that allow you to do so on your own, such as ReadID NFC Demo for Android or ReadID NFC Me for iOS. While these apps may not be able to list all the data that's encoded on your passport, they should give a rough idea on what may or may not be in your passport.