OTTAWA — Canada plans to begin issuing high-tech passports with digitized photographs next year, saying reliable travel documents are crucial to the country's status as a "First World nation."

The e-Passport, as the revamped book is dubbed - given its electronic features - will be distributed on a trial basis to Canadian diplomats sometime in the first half of 2005, said Dan Kingsbury, a spokesman for the federal Passport Office.

"If the initial implementation goes well, we'll begin issuing the e-Passport to the general public afterwards," Kingsbury said in an interview.

"It's all about maintaining the integrity and the security of the passport."

The project is the latest federal initiative to track and control the flow of people across borders more closely following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

The government is pushing ahead with the plan despite objections from privacy and information specialists who argue it is unduly intrusive and unlikely to enhance national security.

With the inclusion of a digitized photo, the passport moves into the controversial realm of biometrics, the use of measurable personal features such as an image, iris scan or fingerprints as identification markers.

The e-Passport will feature a computer chip containing the holder's photograph and personal information on the current passport, including name and date of birth, say briefing notes obtained by The Canadian Press under the federal Access to Information law.

Authorities at border points would be able to call up the data on the digital chip by swiping the passport against an electronic reader.

"The aim of the e-Passport is to reduce the chance of passport tampering and identity fraud," Kingsbury said.

"What the person checking the passport will be able to do is ensure that everything is the same on the chip as it is in the passport itself."

In May 2003, the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization settled on facial recognition as the minimum biometric security standard for passports.

Initially some worried the United States would require Canadian visitors to carry passports conforming to ICAO standards.

Though Canada is exempt from the U.S. regime, the federal government decided on a "proactive response" to the American move to step up border controls, say the newly released background notes on the e-Passport project.

"It is reasonable to assume that other countries, besides the U.S., will soon require the ICAO standards for all travel documents," say the notes,

They say the Canadian initiative, with funding of $10.3 million over three years, is in line with the government's intention to produce "internationally respected" travel identification.

"To maintain its reputation as a First World nation, Canada must issue a biometrically enabled passport."

Kingsbury said there is no plan to compile a searchable electronic database of the images and other data encoded on e-Passport chips.

The project still raises concerns because storage of personal information on computer chips potentially opens the door to "much wider circulation" of the data, said Andrew Clement, a professor of information studies at the University of Toronto.

"It hasn't been analysed and discussed openly in terms of what the implications are."

There is a misguided faith among many that technology will solve security problems in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, said Valerie Steeves, a law professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.

"There's been a real move in governments to create a whole infrastructure of technological surveillance," she said.

"We've created a network that has real implications for our democratic way of life and nobody's sat back and said, 'Hey, has this helped us catch any terrorists?' "

Officials have not decided whether the current fee of $85 to obtain or renew a passport will change, Kingsbury said.

As part of the security overhaul, the government will also eliminate the practice of printing some passports overseas, and it will redesign the emergency passport issued to travellers whose documents are lost or stolen, Kingsbury added.

Beginning as early as January, stranded travellers will be given a temporary passport with a white cover - to distinguish it from the regular dark blue - valid for one year.

Officials are looking at requiring recipients of temporary passports to apply for a regular passport, valid for five years, at the same time, Kingsbury said.