Passports of tomorrow will be virtual

The document of dreams, a passport, has undergone many transformations. From simple hand-written booklets to biometric-enabled, machine-readable documents, passport across the world are poised for a dramatic shift. 

Experts feel that a physical document may not even be required in the future. A combination of biometric information and national identity numbers could effectively be the new passport for crossing international borders. 

This transition is happening in phases, though at a rapid pace. The first big shift is the move to chip-enabled e-passports. An e-passport is a document with an electronic chip embedded in a page. This chip keeps information such as the