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From that article it looks like all you need to establish a secure connection with the passport is some data that is printed in plaintext on the photo page.

It seems (again, if I'm reading correctly) that you only really need a private key in order to issue a passport.

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Yes, that's correct. There have been apps on iOS and Android that can read your passport via NFC for ages. As you noted, all you need is the plaintext information printed on the photo page to generate the Basic Access Control key, which will let you connect to the passport's NFC chip.

Issuing a passport is a different issue entirely, since you need a country's document signing key.

quick note -- I believe you need a separate key to get biometric data out of the passports, but it's been a while since I looked at passport digital infrastructure.

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