Stolen ePassports ‘worth £20m’ on black market
Nick Heath writes on the Silicon.com web site:
The thousands of UK ePassports stolen on Monday are likely to sell for up to £20m on the black market, say privacy experts.
A van carrying about 3,000 blank ePassports and visas was hijacked on route to RAF Northolt, near London.
While the Home Office claims that “high tech checks” render the blank ePassports useless, privacy experts say they could be used to fool everyday ID checks, for limited travel abroad or be fitted with cloned chips.
Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said: “It’s unlikely that the stolen passports could easily navigate the UK borders but a criminal could use one indefinitely for ‘flash and go’ purposes. Alternatively the passports could be used for at least a few months for entry to most countries in the world.
“The presence of so many potentially strong false identities would have a very high black market value – perhaps in the range of £20m – and so a criminal enterprise would easily justify making the investment to hack the chip.”
