| Extended Access Control (EAC) | The EAC protocol has been developed by the European Union to protect the more sensitive data on biometric travel documents, in particular the holder?s fingerprint images. EAC comprises two distinct phases: chip authentication and terminal authentication. During chip authentication, secure communication between the chip and the reader is established. At this point an implicit authenticity check of the stored information is also carried out. This process enables authentication of components that were allocated during personalisation to take place. Because only a ?genuine? chip is capable of establishing communication with the reader unit which is protected by both keys, chip authentication also ensures automatic ?copy-proofing? of the stored chip contents at the same time. During terminal authentication, only authorised reader units with precisely defined access rights can gain access to the information stored in the chip. Whenever communication is established between the chip and the reader unit, the reader unit?s authorisation certificate is automatically checked. |
