A Machine Readable Passport (MRP) is a travel document where the data on the identity page is encoded in optical character recognition format. Many countries began to issue machine readable travel documents in the 1980s.
Most travel passports worldwide are MRPs. They are standardized by the ICAO Document 9303 (endorsed by the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission as ISO/IEC 7501-1) and have a special Machine Readable Zone or MRZ, which is usually at the bottom of the identity page at the beginning of a passport. The ICAO Document 9303 describes three types of documents. Usually the passport is a Type 3 travel document. The Machine Readable Zone of a Type 3 travel document spans two lines and each line is 44 characters long. The following information has to be provided in the zone: name, passport number, nationality, date of birth, sex, passport expiration date and personal identity number. There is room for optional, often country dependent, supplementary information.
Between 2003 and 2005 the United States progressively introduced regulations that make machine readable passports mandatory for those entering the U.S. under the Visa Waiver Program. Travelers from Visa Waiver countries without machine readable passports must possess a US entry visa or they will be denied admission.
The advantages of machine readable passports include:
Contents |
The data of the machine readable zone consists of two rows of 44 characters each. The only characters used are A-Z, 0-9 and the filler character <.
The format of the first row is:
| positions | chars | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | alpha | P, indicating a passport |
| 2 | alpha | type (for countries that distinguish between different types of passports) |
| 3–5 | alpha | issuing country or organization (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code with modifications) |
| 6–44 | alpha | last name, followed by two filler characters, followed by given names |
In the name field, spaces, hyphens and other punctuation are represented by <, except apostrophes, which are skipped. If the names are too long, names are abbreviated to their most significant parts. In that case, the last position must contain an alphabetic character to indicate possible truncation, and if there is a given name, the two fillers and at least one character of it must be included.
The format of the second row is:
| positions | chars | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1–9 | alpha+num | passport number |
| 10 | num | check digit over digits 1–9 |
| 11–13 | alpha | nationality (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code with modifications) |
| 14–19 | num | date of birth (YYMMDD) |
| 20 | num | check digit over digits 14–19 |
| 21 | alpha | sex (M, F or < for male, female or unspecified) |
| 22–27 | num | expiration date of passport (YYMMDD) |
| 28 | num | check digit over digits 22–27 |
| 29–42 | alpha+num | personal number (may be used by the issuing country as it desires) |
| 43 | num | check digit over digits 29–42 (may be < if all characters are <) |
| 44 | num | check digit over digits 1–10, 14–20, and 22–43 |
The check digit calculation is as follows: each position is assigned a value; for the digits 0 to 9 this is the value of the digits, for the letters A to Z this is 10 to 35, for the filler < this is 0. The value of each position is then multiplied by its weight; the weight of the first position is 7, of the second it is 3, and of the third it is 1, and after that the weights repeat 7, 3, 1, etcetera. All values are added together and the remainder of the final value divided by 10 is the check digit.
Some values that are different from ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 are used for the issuing country and nationality field:[1]
The data of the machine readable zone consists of three rows of 30 characters each. The only characters used are A-Z, 0-9 and the filler character <.
The format of the first row is:
| positions | chars | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | alpha | I, A or C |
| 2 | alpha | type, at discretion of states, but 1-2 should be IP for passport card, AC for crew member and IV is not allowed |
| 3–5 | alpha | issuing country or organization (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code with modifications) |
| 6–14 | alpha+num | document number |
| 15 | num | check digit over digits 6–14 |
| 16-30 | alpha+num | optional |
In addition to ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code with modifications used for issuing country in passports, also the following organization is accepted:
The format of the second row is:
| positions | chars | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1–6 | num | date of birth (YYMMDD) |
| 7 | num | check digit over digits 1–6 |
| 8 | alpha | sex (M, F or < for male, female or unspecified) |
| 9-14 | num | expiration date of passport (YYMMDD) |
| 15 | num | check digit over digits 9–14 |
| 16-18 | alpha | nationality |
| 19-29 | alpha+num | optional (for U.S. passport holders, 21-29 may be corresponding passport number) |
| 30 | num | check digit over digits 6-30 (upper line), 1-7, 9-15, 19-29 (middle line)[2] |
The format of the third row is:
| positions | chars | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1-30 | alpha | last name, followed by two filler characters, followed by given names |