Since its inception, Apple is known for offering the most innovative product line on the market. One of the latest examples of this is FaceID face recognition technology, which the Company began to implement on iPhone X and has integrated into new devices as a biometric authentication method.
A patent application from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has now revealed a system that will allow future iPhones to be used as electronic passports that can be registered at customs and airports.
Under the title ‘Import of secure element documents’, the patent describes a ‘secure’ data storage system together with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology that would enable the use of a mobile phone as an electronic identification document or other verifiable forms of government identification.
According to Patently Apple, the vast majority of passports today contain an electronic chip (RFID) that can store a person’s name, date of birth and other interesting information. This passport is then attached to an RFID reader at the airport so that the security forces can verify the identity of the traveler.
The future iPhone could not only securely store a person’s identity data via an RFID chip, but could also send it to the authorities so that the user can verify his identity with the data stored on his smartphone. It would suffice for users to guide their iPhone through an RFID reader at an airport checkpoint to authenticate their identity.
Although this is a patent and there is no guarantee that Apple will ever use this technology, it is most likely that these or similar systems will soon be on display at airports because mobile devices are widely used around the world. Apple has already installed biometric authentication systems on its mobile phones, so this technology should be available much earlier.