[mschuster91]

> - Clone a passport -> why cloning if you can issue new ones - getting risked being detected while using a clone (2 entries in 2 different countries, and you also need to look like the person) not to mention you have to destroy the passport

Well... not really. ICAO compliant passports do not require storing a photo embedded in the chip, as long as you can forge the physical part of the passport (or obtain blanks) you just need the digital certificates from a "donor" passport of John Doe, print "John Doe" and his personal data (birth day/place, nationality, issuance/expiry data) on the human readable and MRZ fields, but crucially the photo of the person using the forgery.

Also, there are no centralized, cross country stores of entry/departure. Lots of places don't even register it for visa-free border crossings.

Some national ID documents, e.g. the Croatian national ID card "osobna iskaznica", do store a photo embedded in the chip, so that indeed restricts a forgery from being used by a non-lookalike.

[lxgr]

> ICAO compliant passports do not require storing a photo embedded in the chip

That's completely on the issuing country then, though, just like they e.g. might choose to not use dynamic chip authentication, which also makes the passport subject to trivial chip cloning.

I wouldn't be surprised if some e-border gates reject travel documents that don't support chip authentication or don't have a digital version of the photo covered by the issuer signature.