ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization, an UN entity) works continuously on strengthening the security of travel documents. One initiative is to add Visible Digital Seals to Non-Electronic Documents, such as Visas. See ICAO's technical report on ICAO Visible Digital Seals.
The core idea is to create a digital signature on the information in the document, and print a representation of the signature on the document itself. It is a requirement that no technology for printing the signature can be applied unless it is covered by an ISO standard. Currently, this narrows the alternatives to DataMatrix (ISO/IEC 16022), Aztec (ISO/IEC24778:2008), or QR-kode (ISO/IEC 18004:2006). The proposal also covers infrastructure for key management. A technical discussion can be found in BSI TR-03137.
To fully grasp the scope of the issue, one must read both Norwegian law and regulations, EU regulations and Commission Decisions (including technical annexes), and ICAO documentation on infrastructure and document design. Any suggestion not within the regulatory framework is not viable.
Context is the new Norwegian travel documents. In particular the forthcoming "Single Journey Passport", but also the existing "Schengen visum". Other possibilities could be envisioned, such as a temporary ID-card.
The focus of this Master project is to investigate the best options and technical solutions in the Norwegian national context. More specifically, the project should:
- Construct a reasonable use-case,
- Evaluate the proposed infrastructure against the current Norwegian implementation,
- Evaluate the three alternatives for printing (taking both the context and use-case into consideration), and
- Develop a simple prototype.
Co-supervisors on technical and legal aspects are Dr. Øivind Næss, Politidirektoratet, and Dr. Tage Stabell-Kulø, KPMG.
For further details, discussions and clarification, please contact Øivind Næss (Oivind.Naess@politiet.no) or Tage Stabell-Kulø (tage.stabell-kulo@politiet.no).