Canadian passports easy to hack

As Canada prepares to roll out electronic passports next year, experts warn the technology is far from perfect, reports The Montreal Gazette.

The passports will have radio frequency identification (RFID) microchips embedded in them to store personal information about the traveller that can be used by border officials to verify the person's identity.

According to Adam Laurie, a British computer security researcher, for as little as $100, a fraudster could purchase the equipment needed to clone the information on an e-passport and software to make the task easier is available for free on the Internet.

Apple has developed a near field communications (NFC) patent to enable a wide range of devices to share resources within a connected Apple TV living room, states Near Field Communications World.

The Apple patent explains how NFC can be used to automate devices such as iPhones, iPods, printers, TVs, cameras and remote controls to share resources such as hardware, software and entertainment products.

The patent application describes how sharing would be initiated via either NFC functionality built into a device or via an RFID tag on the device.

RFID solutions provider ZK Software has introduced an advanced facial and fingerprint biometric RFID reader, says ThomasNet News.

The touch of a finger, a one-second facial scan, or flash of an ID card is all it takes for the iFace to verify a person's identity.

"The iFace 302 introduces a new level of sophistication for biometric readers," says Jaimin Shah, CEO of ZK Software. "It offers multiple options to quickly and accurately identify a person, and cannot be compromised by unauthorised parties.”