science

Passports of the EFTA member states

Passports of the EFTA member states is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Passports of the EFTA member states rather than just read about it. In short: Passports of the EFTA member states are passports issued by the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member states Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. EFTA is in this article used as a common name for these countries.

Key takeaways

Passports of the EFTA member states belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Passports of the EFTA member states to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Passports of the EFTA member states from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Passports of the EFTA member states are passports issued by the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member states Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. EFTA is in this article used as a common name for these countries. EFTA as an organisation does issue rules for passport design and validity of the four countries, but the European Union does this through the Schengen regulations, besides the global ICAO regulations. The EFTA member states are bound by the Schengen regulations as they are part of the Schengen Area.

Use Passports issued by the EFTA member states can be used by citizens to exercise the right of free movement within EFTA and the European Economic Area (EEA), which consists of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway in addition to the member states of the European Union. Instead of being part of the EEA, Switzerland has a series of bilateral agreements with the EU. The European Single Market consequently has been extended, with exceptions, to all EFTA member states. The EFTA member states are also signatories of the Schengen Agreement and part of the Schengen Area. Citizens of the EFTA member states generally have the same rights as EU citizens in EEA countries and are treated as EU citizens for the purposes of travel and entry into EEA countries. When going through border controls to enter an EFTA or EEA member state, EFTA and EU/EEA citizens possessing valid biometric passports are sometimes able to use automated gates instead of immigration counters, whilst all other citizens (such as those using a national identity card or a non-biometric passport) and non-EEA citizens must use an immigration counter. Anyone travelling with children must also use an immigration counter.

Characteristics Passport standards are issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) which are treated as recommendations to national governments. All EFTA member states except Liechtenstein are ICAO members, but Liechtenstein has delegated Switzerland to implement the treaty to make it applicable in the territory of Liechtenstein. ICAO has published standards for machine-readable passports contained in Document 9303 Machine Readable Travel Documents and a more recent standard covering biometric passports. All EFTA countries issues biometric passports.

The size of passport booklets shall be 125 mm × 88 mm (4.9 in × 3.5 in), as specified in ISO/IEC 7810 ID-3 standard. The data page follows a standardized layout, divided into seven zones which contain mandatory elements in a standard sequence. Zones I to VI forms the Visual Inspection Zone (VIZ), and Zone VII is the Machine Readable Zone (MRZ). All fields for mandatory data elements in the VIZ shall have captions which may be in the official language of the issuing State. If that language is not English, French or Spanish, it shall be followed by an oblique character (/) and the equivalent of the caption in English, French or Spanish. If the official language is English, French or Spanish is shall be followed by one of the other two languages. Latin-alphabet characters (i.e. A to Z) and Arabic numerals (i.e. 1234567890) shall be used in the VIZ with diacritics permitted. Schengen member states shall issue passports and travel documents that comply with minimum security standards. This is according to Council Regulation (EC) 2252/2004 and 444/2009 which the EFTA countries are bound by, as it constitutes a development of provisions of the Schengen acquis within the meaning of the Agreement concluded by the Council of the European Union and Iceland and Norway, the agreement concluded by the European Union, the European Community and the Swiss Confederation, and the Protocol signed between the European Union, the European Community, the Swiss Confederation and the Principality of Liechtenstein on the accession of the Principality of Liechtenstein to the Agreement between the European Union, the European Community and the Swiss Confederation, concerning the association of the four States with the implementation, application and development of the Schengen acquis.

Passports and travel documents issued by Member States shall comply with the minimum security standards set out in the Annex of the regulation. Passports must incorporate a storage medium (a chip) that contains the holder's facial image and fingerprints. This obligation does not apply to identity cards or to temporary passports and travel documents with a validity of one year or less. In addition to harmonization of security features and biometrics, member states of the European Union have started to harmonise aspects of the designs of their ordinary passports. Most passports issued by EU member states have the common recommended lay out; burgundy in colour with the words “European Union” followed by the name(s) of the country, the emblem of the state and the word "Passport". Of the EFTA member states, only Iceland and Liechtenstein follows the same order as on EU passports, but with a blue cover. Swiss and Norwegian passports have a brighter red cover. The Swiss passport with the word "Swiss passports" in German, French, Italian, Romansh and English above the Swiss equilateral white cross, and the Norwegian passport sports the coat of arms of Norway emblazoned in the top left of the front cover, above the words "Kingdom of Norway" and "Passport" in Bokmål, Nynorsk, Sami and English.

Machine-readable zone

Passports and travel document shall contain a machine-readable biographical data page, which shall comply with Part 1 (machine-readable passports) of ICAO Document 9303 and the way they are issued shall comply with the specifications for machine-readable passports set out therein. Newer EFTA passports contain a Machine-readable zone, which contains the name, nationality and most other information from the identification page. It is designed in a way so that computers can fairly easily read the information, although it still human readable, since it contains only letters (A–Z), digits and "<" as space character, but no bar graph or similar. Apostrophes and similar have to be omitted, but hyphens and spaces should be replaced by an angle bracket. Diacritical marks are not permitted in the MRZ. Even though they may be useful to distinguish names, the use of diacritical marks in the MRZ could confuse machine-reading equipment.

Personal name spelling differences

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Passports of the EFTA member states

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Passports of the EFTA member states claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Passports of the EFTA member states before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Passports of the EFTA member states ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Passports of the EFTA member states

In research: Passports of the EFTA member states appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Passports of the EFTA member states in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Passports of the EFTA member states is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Authentication methods, European Economic Area, European Free Trade Association, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Passports of the EFTA member states outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Passports of the EFTA member states in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Passports of the EFTA member states means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Passports of the EFTA member states in simple terms?

Why does Passports of the EFTA member states matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Passports of the EFTA member states?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Passports of the EFTA member states.