In 1993 Rochford Thompson developed the world’s first passport reader specifically designed for use on airline check-in desks. As well as reading OCR codelines on Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs) such as passports, visas, travel cards and ID cards which comply to ICAO Document 9303, the reader also captured magnetic stripe data (MSR) from ATBs, frequent flyer cards and bank cards. Since that time 3M Rochford Thompson has supplied more than 35,000 passport readers and passport scanners to organisations such as border control authorities, airlines, border police, cruise lines, hotels and numerous systems integrators worldwide. The 3M Rochford Thompson range includes passport swipe readers, passport QA readers, portable passport readers, full page passport scanners, passport OEM modules and portable immigration control terminals. 3M Rochford Thompson’s latest generation passport page scanner has recently been launched with an RFID option to read contactless RF chips in ICAO compliant e-Passports (also known as biometric passports or smart passports).