New German passport to contain contactless secure chips

The German government is using highly secure chips developed by Munich-based
semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies AG. This is an effort to make
counterfeiting and unauthorized use virtually impossible in future electronic
passports, which the German Passport Office intends to issue as of November
2005.

Infineon will also be supplying a special chip package developed for identity
cards and passports as well as the inlay containing the antenna and its
connection to the chip. There are currently around 24 million German passports
in circulation, which are usually valid for ten years, with an annual
replacement and renewal rate of about 10%.

In the new electronic passport, the printed information about the bearer's
identity - such as the bearer's name, date of birth, and photo, and the
passport's validity period and number - will also be stored encrypted on a
chip. And, starting no later than March 2007, fingerprints of each of the bearer's
index fingers will also be stored in encrypted form. Current plans call for the
chip to be invisibly integrated into the front cover.

The German company "Bundesdruckerei" will be producing the
passports and providing the necessary infrastructure including the background
system and reading devices, etc. Infineon is one of the two semiconductor
suppliers for the German passport.

The data stored on the chip can only be accessed when the passport is opened,
and are transmitted contactlessly to an authorized and certificated read-write
device. More than 50 individual security mechanisms burned deep inside the
Infineon chips using state-of-the-art technology will help ensure that

personal data is protected against unauthorized read-out and manipulation.

Among
other security features, the chips use the RSA method (a special computing algorithm
for encrypting data, named after its inventors Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir and
Leonard Adleman) to provide extremely high security. It is estimated that a
billion standard PCs operating in parallel would have to keep computing for
about a million years if hackers wanted to attempt to access data encrypted
with this system simply by trial and error. The security mechanisms integrated
into Infineon's chips also include active protective shields on the surface
of the chip and sensors that prevent hackers from being able to read out the
chip by applying different voltages.

"Germany is among the first countries to introduce the electronic
passport," said Peter Bauer, Executive VP of Infineon Technologies AG and
Head of the Automotive, Industrial and Multimarket business group. "It's
a feather in Infineon's cap for our chips to be used in the new German
passport. We've equipped our chips with the best possible protection
mechanisms. A host of security certificates prove that Infineon's security
controllers have successfully passed the world's most stringent security tests
conducted according to international standards."

DQC NEWS BUREAU