Electronic passports being introduced in the
A demonstration by German computer security expert Lukas Grunwald showed how personal information stored on the documents could be copied and transferred to another device, the report said.
It appeared to contradict assurances by officials in government and private industry that the electronic information stored in passports could not be duplicated.
"If there is an automatic inspection system, I can use this card to enter any country," Grunwald was quoted as saying, holding up a computer chip containing electronic information he had copied from his German passport.
The research was the latest to raise concerns about the growing use of RFID, short for radio-frequency identification, which allowed everyday objects such as store merchandise, livestock and security documents to beam electronic data to computers equipped with special antennas, the report said.