During the ICAO Regional Seminar on Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTD) in Madrid from 25th to 27th of June 2014 there will be also the opportunity of an interoperability test for ePassports with Supplemental Access Control (SAC). The protocol SAC is replacing Basic Access Control (BAC) used in ePassports and will be obligatory in EU from December 2014. SAC is a mechanism specified to ensure only authorized parties can wirelessly read information from the RFID chip of an ePassport. SAC is also known as PACE v2 (Password Authenticated Connection Establishment). PACE v1 is used as a basic protocol in the German ID card and was developed and specified by the German BSI.

An interoperability test is similar to a plugtest performed e.g. by ETSI. It’s an event during which devices (ePassport, inspection systems and test tools) are tested for interoperability with emerging standards by physically connecting them. This procedure allows all vendors to test their devices against other devices. Additionally, there is the opportunity besides this crossover tests to test the devices against conformity test suites implemented in test tools like GlobalTester. This procedure reduces efforts and allows comprehensive failure analyses of the devices like ePassports or inspection systems. There are well established test specifications available, both for ePassports and for inspection systems. Publishers of these test specifications are the German BSI (TR-03105) or ICAO (TR – RF and Protocol Testing Part 3).

You can find further information corresponding to this event on the ICAO website. The website will be updated frequently.