The passport has to be readable around the world in a reasonable amount of time and ideally in more situations than just immigration.

Philp gives airport check-ins as one example of where RFID-equipped passports should be readable.

Making the e-passport harder to read is possible, Philp says, but it would make immigration processing take longer and inconvenience people.

Researcher Peter Gutmann at the University of Auckland's department of Computer Science is sceptical that the RFID chip provides any real security benefit. In fact, Gutmann goes further and says in his technical background paper, Why biometrics is not a panacea, that RFIDs in passports 'are a disaster waiting to happen.'

German and Dutch passports have already been compromised, according to Gutmann, and this can be done remotely as well. He points to successful attacks by Dutch RFID security specialist Harko Robroch, who has intercepted passport and reader device communications from five meters away. Gutmann says eavesdropping on the reader was possible up to 25 meters.