The MRZ passport band is an important element of document security: it contains the most critical information, and enables in-depth control of the authenticity of this information, preventing it from being falsified.
In this article, we’ll look at the most common cases of passport fraud and how to avoid them.
We’re off!
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What information does the MRZ passport strip contain?
We have written a comprehensive article on the information contained in the MRZ passport band, which can be found at Check the MRZ passport band.
Enjoy your reading!
Fraud on the first MRZ passport line
The first 2 characters are always the same: P with or without a special character depending on the country (otherwise it’s a chevron “<“).
Then there’s the three-character issuing country code, which must correspond to the ISO 3166-1 standard (link: https: //fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1).
This is followed by the holder’s surname and first name(s), completed at the end by chevrons (“<“).
They must match those shown on the document.
Fraud on the second MRZ passport line
The second line begins with the 9-character document number, which can be found printed on the passport itself (and which must therefore be identical).
The following character is a control key for the document number, enabling its integrity to be validated and verified by our service.
The next three digits correspond to ISO 3166-1.
The next 6 digits represent the holder’s date of birth, in YYMMDD format: this must correspond to the date of birth shown on the passport.
The following character is a control key for the date of birth, enabling its integrity to be validated and verified by our service.
Then the gender on an “H” or “F” character, which must correspond to the gender of the holder.
The next 6 characters represent the expiry date in YYMMDD format, which must correspond to that shown on the passport.
Then the expiration date validation key, which validates its integrity and can be verified using our service.
The following 14 characters represent the personal number used by some countries (otherwise represented by chevrons, “<“).
The second line ends with two control keys: the first for the personal number (or “<” if the number is not used), and the global document control key for validating the integrity of the two MRZ lines, which can be checked with our service.
Practical work: online passport verification
Case n°1
Can you detect the problem(s) on the MRZ passport strip above?!
Answer
Everything seems to be in order, but there’s one thing that’s not right!
– the date of birth has been modified, and the date of birth validation key is invalid!
– the document’s global validation key is therefore not valid either!
You have to use a service like ours to check the validation keys: you have 2 analyses offered, test now for free!
Case n°2
Can you detect the problem(s) on the MRZ passport strip above?!
Answer
Everything seems to be in order, but there’s one thing that’s not right!
– the expiration date has been changed, and the expiration date validation key is invalid!
– the document’s global validation key is therefore not valid either!
You need to use a service like ours to check the validation keys: you have 3 analyses to offer, test it now for free!
Case n°3
Can you detect the problem(s) on the MRZ passport strip above?!
Answer
Everything seems to be in order compared to the errors reported in cases n°1 and case n°2, but there’s still an error!
– the number of characters in the MRZ band is invalid (86 instead of 88)!
– none of the validation keys are valid!
Conclusion
You’re now able to detect the main changes on a passport!
We advise you to use our service, which will check your parts completely in just a few minutes!
