MRZ Explained: Machine Readable Zone Technical Guide
Blog post from Didit
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Machine Readable Zones (MRZs) are standardized fixed-width character blocks on passports, identity cards, and other travel documents that encode selected identity and document data for optical reading. ICAO defines several layouts, including TD1 with three 30-character lines, TD2 with two 36-character lines, and TD3 passports with two 44-character lines, each requiring exact preservation of line lengths, field positions, and filler characters. MRZ check digits use a modulus-10 algorithm with repeating 7, 3, and 1 weights to identify many transcription or OCR errors, but they do not establish document authenticity, issuer trust, or that the presenter is the rightful holder. Reliable parsing requires field-specific handling of OCR ambiguities, long document-number exceptions, names altered by transliteration or truncation, two-digit date ambiguity, issuer-specific optional fields, and ICAO rather than generic country codes. NFC chips complement MRZ data by potentially providing digitally signed information, integrity verification through Passive Authentication, and optional anti-cloning protections, although chip authentication and holder verification remain separate processes. Secure implementations should preserve raw and normalized captures, validate layout-specific checks, avoid silent corrections, protect sensitive MRZ data, compare results with visual and chip data, and keep parsing success distinct from document acceptance decisions.
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