Machine Readable Passport Zone
The International Civil Aviation Organization, a Quebec based group, developed standards for Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs), including passports and visas. These MRTD make it easy for automated systems to scan a travel document. If a country decides to check all visitors against a known criminals data reading the information automatically with a computer will be much faster and less prone to error than if the immagration agent needs to type the information in by hand.
The MRTD standards are encoded in ICAO Document 9303. Part 1 documents Machine Readable Passports (MRPs). This standard was accepted by the International Standards Organization as ISO/IEC 7501-1:1997, ISO/IEC 7501-2:1997, and ISO/IEC 7501-03:1997.
If you're interested in original materials, do not bother with the ISO versions. These $27 documents (well, 34,00 CHF) are are essentially a single page saying, "See ICAO Document 9303". ICAO 9303 is much better and includes several pages documenting the history of the document. It's a bit expensive at $62. You might be able to get it through inter-library loan. I borrowed a copy of the much briefer 3rd edition this way. The 5th edition is much larger (126 pages versus the 30 or so), but I don't access to the 5th edition and am unable to comment on what has been added in the remaining 100 pages.
MRTD's have a Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) at the bottom of them. These MRZes are printed in the monospace font OCR-B. It is printed as "Size 1", which works out to be about 14 point. Further details on the font can be found in ISO Standard 1073-2:1976. The exact location of the MRZ, the type of paper, reflectivity and the like are futher documented in ICAO 9303 and ISO 1831:1980.
On a MR Passport there are two lines. Each line is 44 characters long. There are no blank spaces; where one is necessary is it filled with the filler character, a less than sign (<). Here is an example from ICAO 9303. This person is from the fictional country of Utopia, the country code (UTO) is invalid. I've reformatted it to be similar to a United States passport.
PASSPORT
PASSEPORT
PASAPORTEUTOPIA
- Type / Type / Tipo
- P
- Code / Code / Cédigo
- UTO
- Passport No. / No. du Passeport / No. de Pasaporte
- L898902C
- Surname / Nom / Apellidos
- ERIKSSON
- Given names / Prénoms / Nombres
- ANNA MARIA
- Nationality / Nationalité / Nacionalidad
- UTOPIAN
- Date of birth / Date de naissance / Fecha de nacimiento
- 06 Aug 1969
- Personal no / no personnel
- ZE184226B
- Sex / Dexe / Sexo
- F
- Place of birth / Lieu de naissance / Lugar de nacimiento
- ZENITH, UTOPIA
- Date of Issue / Date de délivrance / Fecha de expedición
- 24 Jun 1989
- Authority / Autorité / Autoridad
- Passport Office
- Date of expiration / Date d' expiration / Fecha de caducidad
- 23 Jun 1994
- Ammendments / Modifications / Enmiendas
- See Page 24
P
Notable differences between the example data and an actual US passport:
- The Place of Birth (if in the United States) will be in the form "State, U.S.A."
- The Authority will specify the city of the passport office (New Orleans is one possibility
- Passport numbers are 9 digits with no letters.
- There is no personal number.
- Type, Code, and Passport No. are on the same line. Sex and Place of birth are on the same line. Date of issue and Authority are on the same line. (I haven't figured out how to format it correctly without some tortorous HTML.)
So here is the example MRZ.
PGeneral Notes
All fields are padded with less than signs (<) to fill the required width. There should be no whitespace in the MRZ. Only letters A through Z, digits 0 through 9, and the filler character < are allowed. Some extended letters are mapped to other sets of characters per the following table. The alternate encoding is used when the normal encoding might caused confusion between different names.
Character Encoding Alternate Encoding Ä AE Å AA Æ AE IJ IJ IJ IJ Ñ N NXX Ö OE Ø OE Ü UE UXX ß SS P - Passport
t - Passport Type
The second character can be assigned by the issuing country to distinguish different types of passports. If unused a < is assigned.The United States, at least in the cases I've seen, doesn't use this field.In the example above there is a <, apparently the fictional country of Utopia doesn't specify specific types, or Anna doesn't need one.iii - Issuing Country or Organization
The issuing country or organization, encoded in three characters. The code is pulled from this table.In the example above the code is UTO. This code doesn't exist; it's the fictional country of Utopia for the example.nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn - Name
This field is the passport holder's name. The general format is "LAST". The name is entirely upper case. Puncuation (like hyphens) are replaced with the filler character < The surname is given first, then the filler character twice (<<), then the remainder of given names. Separate names in the surname or given name are separated with the filler character < The filler character < pads out the field to fill 39 characters. Suffixes (Jr, Sr, II, III, etc) are encoded as part of the last name, without punctuation.If the name is too long to fit the most significant parts of the name are used. Names may abbreviated if necessary to make them fit.In the above example Anna's surname is Eriksson, her first and middle names are Anna and Maria. Her name is encoded asERIKSSON<######### - Passport Number
This is the passport number, as assigned by the issuing country. Each country is free to assign numbers using any system it likes. If the number has non-letter or number characters they are replaced with the filler character <.C - Check digit
Check digits are calculated based on the previous field. Thus, the first check digit is based on the passport number, the next is based on the date of birth, the next on the expiration date, and the next on the personal number. The check digit is calculated using this algorithm.bbb - Nationality
The issuing country or organization, encoded in three characters. The code is pulled from this table.In the example above the code is UTO. This code doesn't exist; it's the fictional country of Utopia for the example.YYMMDD - Date of Birth
The date of the passport holder's birth in YYMMDD form. Year is truncated to the least significant two digits. Single digit months or days are prepended with 0.In the example Anna was born in August 6th, 1969. That encodes as "690806".s - Sex
Sex of the passport holder, M for males, F for females, and < for non-specified.yymmdd - Passport Expiration Date
The date the passport expires in YYMMDD form. Year is truncated to the least significant two digits. Single digit months or days are prepended with 0.pppppppppppppp - Personal Number
This field can be used for any purpose that the issuing country desires.The United States uses this field in some unknown way. My personal passport has a single digit number in the field.X - Final check digit
This is a check digit for positions 1 to 10, 14 to 20, and 22 to 43 on the second line. Thus, the nationality and sex are not included in the check. The check digit is calculated using this algorithm.Check Digit Calculations
First, break the input into individual characteres and numbers.Next, convert non-digits into numbers. A through Z are encoded to 10 through 25. The filler character < is encoded as 0.
< A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Now, multiply each number by the corresponding weighting. The first digit is multipled by 7, the next by 3, and the next by 1. The pattern then repeats (7, 3, 1, 7, 3, 1, 7, 3, 1, etc).Add up the results, then divide by 10. The remainder is the check digit.As a special case, if the personal number on the second line is not used (and thus entirely filled with the filler character <), the check digit for that section can be replaced with the filler character <.An example for the input AB2134:
Input: A B 2 1 3 4 < < < Value: 10 11 2 1 3 4 0 0 0 Weight: 7 3 1 7 3 1 7 3 1 Products: 70 33 2 7 9 4 0 0 0 Sum: 70 + 33 + 2 + 7 + 9 + 4 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 125 Country / Organization / Special Table
This table is used for both issuing country and nationality. If the code is shorter than 3 characters it is padded to three characters with the filler character <.The code list is based on the alpha-3 codes in ISO 3166, but is not entirely identical. The United Nations Statistics Division has a free list of ISO 3166 alpha-3 codes.
Country Code Afghanistan AFG Albania ALB Algeria DZA American Samoa ASM Andorra AND Angola AGO Anguilla AIA Antarctica ATA Antigua and Barbuda ATG Argentina ARG Armenia ARM Aruba ABW Australia AUS Austria AUT Azerbaijan AZE Bahamas BHS Bahrain BHR Bangladesh BGD Barbados BRB Belarus BLR Belgium BEL Belize BLZ Benin BEN Bermuda BMU Bhutan BTN Bolivia BOL Bosnia and Herzegovina BIH Botswana BWA Bouvet Island BVT Brazil BRA British Indian Ocean Territory IOT Brunei Darussalam BRN Bulgaria BGR Burkina Faso BFA Burundi BDI Cambodia KHM Cameroon CMR Canada CAN Cape Verde CPV Cayman Islands CYM Central African Republic CAF Chad TCD Chile CHL China CHN Christmas Island CXR Cocos (Keeling) Islands CCK Colombia COL Comoros COM Congo COG Cook Islands COK Costa Rica CRI Côte d'Ivoire CIV Croatia HRV Cuba CUB Cyprus CYP Czech Republic CZE Democratic People's Republic of Korea PRK Democratic Republic of the Congo COD Denmark DNK Djibouti DJI Dominica DMA Dominican Republic DOM East Timor TMP Ecuador ECU Egypt EGY El Salvador SLV Equatorial Guinea GNQ Eritrea ERI Estonia EST Ethiopia ETH Falkland Islands (Malvinas) FLK Faeroe Islands FRO Fiji FJI Finland FIN France FRA France, Metropolitan FXX French Guiana GUF French Polynesia PYF Gabon GAB Gambia GMB Georgia GEO Germany D Ghana GHA Gibraltar GIB Greece GRC Greenland GRL Grenada GRD Guadeloupe GLP Guam GUM Guatemala GTM Guinea GIN Guinea-Bissau GNB Guyana GUY Haiti HTI Heard and McDonald Islands HMD Holy See (Vatican City State) VAT Honduras HND Hong Kong HKG Hungary HUN Iceland ISL India IND Indonesia IDN Iran, Islamic Republic of IRN Iraq IRQ Ireland IRL Israel ISR Italy ITA Jamaica JAM Japan JPN Jordan JOR Kazakhstan KAZ Kenya KEN Kiribati KIR Kuwait KWT Kyrgyzstan KGZ Lao People's Democratic Republic LAO Latvia LVA Lebanon LBN Lesotho LSO Liberia LBR Libyan Arab Jamahiriya LBY Liechtenstein LIE Lithuania LTU Luxembourg LUX Madagascar MDG Malawi MWI Malaysia MYS Maldives MDV Mali MLI Malta MLT Marshall Islands MHL Martinique MTQ Mauritania MRT Mauritius MUS Mayotte MYT Mexico MEX Micronesia, Federated States of FSM Monaco MCO Mongolia MNG Montserrat MSR Morocco MAR Mozambique MOZ Myanmar MMR Namibia NAM Nauru NRU Nepal NPL Netherlands, Kingdom of the NLD Netherlands Antilles ANT Neutral Zone NTZ New Caledonia NCL New Zealand NZL Nicaragua NIC Niger NER Nigeria NGA Niue NIU Norfolk Island NFK Northern Mariana Islands MNP Norway NOR Oman OMN Pakistan PAK Palau PLW Panama PAN Papua New Guinea PNG Paraguay PRY Peru PER Philippines PHL Pitcairn PCN Poland POL Portugal PRT Puerto Rico PRI Qatar QAT Republic of Korea KOR Republic of Moldova MDA Réunion REU Romania ROM Russian Federation RUS Rwanda RWA Saint Helena SHN Saint Kitts and Nevis KNA Saint Lucia LCA Saint Pierre and Miquelon SPM Saint Vincent and the Grenadines VCT Samoa WSM San Marino SMR Sao Tome and Principe STP Saudi Arabia SAU Senegal SEN Seychelles SYC Sierra Leone SLE Singapore SGP Slovakia SVK Slovenia SVN Solomon Islands SLB Somalia SOM South Africa ZAF South Georgia and the South Sandwich Island SGS Spain ESP Sri Lanka LKA Sudan SDN Suriname SUR Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands SJM Swaziland SWZ Sweden SWE Switzerland CHE Syrian Arab Republic SYR Taiwan Province of China TWN Tajikistan TJK Thailand THA The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia MKD Togo TGO Tokelau TKL Tonga TON Trinidad and Tobago TTO Tunisia TUN Turkey TUR Turkmenistan TKM Turks and Caicos Islands TCA Tuvalu TUV Uganda UGA Ukraine UKR United Arab Emirates ARE United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - Citizen GBR - Dependent territories citizen GBD - National (overseas) GBN - Overseas citizen GBO - Protected Person GBP - Subject GBS United Republic of Tanzania TZA United States of America USA United States of America Minor Outlying Islands UMI Uruguay URY Uzbekistan UZB Vanuatu VUT Venezuela VEN Viet Nam VNM Virgin Islands (Great Britian) VGB Virgin Islands (United States) VIR Wallis and Futuna Islands WLF Western Sahara ESH Yemen YEM Zaire ZAR Zambia ZMB Zimbabwe ZWE United Nations Organization (If indicating nationality, indicates an UN offical) UNO United Nations specialized agency official UNA Stateless (per Article 1 of 1954 convention) XXA Refugee (per Article 1 of 1951 convention, amended by 1967 protocol) XXB Refugee (non-convention) XXC Unspecified / Unknown XXX
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