The U.S. government is going forward with the public deployment of its electronic passport, ordering millions of the wireless chips from semiconductor firm Infineon to place in the back cover of the nation's travel document, the German company announced on Monday.

While the U.S. already began issuing the documents to federal employees as of late 2005, the nation--and the 27 countries that take part in the Visa Waiver Program--must start public distribution of electronic passports, or e-passports, but October 2006. In the first year, the U.S. will likely issue up to 15 million of the new passports, Infineon said in its statement.

"The United States is helping to set the pace for adoption of more secure travel documents around the world," Christopher Cook, managing director of Infineon Technologies North America, said in the statement.

The electronic passport has been the focus of controversy, with many privacy activists and security experts worried over the possibility that identity thieves and terrorists could read the data on the passport from a distance. The U.S. has instituted countermeasures, including shielding inside the front cover of the document and using a basic encryption scheme to protect the data. Yet, at the latest Black Hat Briefings security conference, a German researchers showed how someone could read the data out from a passport and clone the functions of the digital document using a smart-card chip. The Smart Card Alliance, an industry group, dismissed the significance of the finding.

About 13 million people enter the U.S. every year from countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program. Among the 27 nations in the program are Austria, Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.