New Passport Seeks to Limit Forgery

A new passport designed to make forgery more difficult has been launched. The new passport has a digitized photograph and data page, the biggest improvement in passport technology in 17 years, the State Department said. The image in the new passport is embedded in the paper of the data page, making it almost impossible to remove it and replace it with another photograph. The data page also has a security film with a built-in image, similar to a hologram, and sophisticated microline printing. Every year, 15,000 passports are stolen and used to commit financial and other crimes, the department said.