KUALA LUMPUR - THE Malaysian passport will be upgraded early next year to bring it in line with world standards.

Immigration Department director-general Mahmood Adam said the upgrades were necessary to ensure the Malaysian passport remained tamper-proof, reported the New Sunday Times.

'Technology is growing rapidly and so has the capability to clone things. If we do not adapt or evolve constantly, we will lose the game,' he said

Datuk Mahmood said the new passport will do away with most of the existing 35 security features which are no longer relevant. He said there will be five new features, which adhere to the International Civil Aviation Organisation's passport standards.

The passport's data chip would be upgraded to a smaller one and the encryption used on the chip will be increased to be on par with the ones introduced by the United States Immigration, which are said to be 'unbreakable'.

Mr Mahmood said the chip's radio-frequency identification capabilities would be given a boost, enabling faster reading time at immigration points. The pages of the passport will be held together by a special stitch which will break loose if there are any attempts at removing the pages.

Mr Mahmood said Malaysia would be introducing several 'firsts' in the passport, such as using nano-organic DNA ink in the document.

'The technology is Malaysian-based and the special ink will be coded with DNA, thus making it unique to us.

'There will be micro-sized colour dots on every page. This feature is used worldwide to detect counterfeits.'