Cloud Passport: Australia To Trial Passport-Free Travel

I hate my passport. Hate it. I leave it everywhere, my photo is stupid (mostly because of my stupid face), and they cost a boatload to replace every few years. Australia has signalled that it might be time to leave the humble passport behind, however, with a new passport-free travel trial it’s calling Cloud Passport.

Information on how so-called Cloud Passports would work is scarce, but Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says that Australia and New Zealand would both trial the scheme. Biometric information would be stored on Australian citizens in a central database, with technology like SmartGate and other biometric security tools verifying travellers on their way back into the country.

It’s worth pointing out that passports are still one of the best forms of ID around the world, and storing the passport data of Aussies in the cloud makes it a massive target for hackers looking to on-sell personal information.

The idea reportedly came from an internal hackathon at the Department of Foreign Affairs And Trade. [SMH]

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Ronald K. Noble is the founder of RKN Global and currently serves as one of its principal consultants.