What's stored inside the IC chip in a Japanese e-passport?

the e-passport symbol on the book front cover
My family went to the passport center near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (都庁 {tochō}) to renew my child's passport last Sunday. Yes, you heard me right. A government service that was open on Sunday. That's unusual even in Japan too.

Her blue passport (minors can only get the five (5) year blue passport) had been prepared for her. Upon stepping up to the counter, the lady asked her a few simple questions to confirm that everything on the passport was correct. (ex. "What's you name? What's your birthday")

the passport is laid on top of the terminal to the left
She then opened up the passport to the first page (on Japanese passports, the vital information is on the first page, not the inside of the cover) and placed the book on a special reader that read both the MRZ (machine readable zone) and the contact-less IC chip. Upon doing this, the monitor on the counter displayed everything in the chip on the screen:

旅券記録情報 {ryoken kiroku jōhō} (passport recorded info)
  • 顔写真情報 {kao-shashin jōhō} (photograph): digital, in color. There will be no watermarks or overprints on it. This is the only "biodata" in a Japanese e-passport. Unlike other countries, Japanese e-passports do not store fingerprints, etc.
  • 旅券番号 {ryoken bangō} (passport number): modern Japanese passports are two letters followed by seven digits (ex. AZ1234567)
  • 有効期限満了日 {yūkō kigen manryōbi} (final day of validity): up to and including the last day of validity
  • 姓 {sei} (family name): alternate name(s) in parenthesis are not recorded or displayed. If you passport front page says "INOUE(HAVILL)", both the MRZ and the contact-less IC chip will only have "INOUE" recorded. No 漢字 {kanji} (sinogram) or 仮名 {kana} (syllabet) name is recorded.
  • 名 {na} (given name): alternate name(s) in parenthesis are not recorded or displayed. If you passport front page says "EIDO(ADRIAN/DAVID)", both the MRZ and the contact-less IC chip will only show "EIDO" as being recorded. No 漢字 {kanji} (sinogram) or 仮名 {kana} (syllabet) name is recorded.
  • 性別 {seibetsu} (sex): male (M) or female (F)
  • 生年月日 {seinengappi} (birth date): the date will be in 和暦 {wareki} (Western calendar), in European format (ex. 01 JAN 1970)
  • 国籍 {kokuseki} (nationality): should always be "JAPAN" for a Japanese passport
  • 発行国 {hakkō-koku} (issuing country): if you are getting your Japanese passport from an overseas consulate, this will not be Japan. One of my U.S. passports was issued in Tokyo, Japan.
Why does the Japanese e-passport reader need to see both the MRZ and the contact-less IC chip page (on Japanese passports, it's on a special hard page in the middle of the book)? Because the IC chip is encrypted, and without the information in the MRZ on the front page, the chip cannot be read. So if someone came up to you with a skimmer (they would need to get the skimmer closer than 10cm to the passport to read it), they wouldn't be able to decrypt it without already knowing what's on the first page. This simple protection method is called BAC (basic access control), and while it's not on all forms of contact-less IC chip technology, one form or another is used on all official government issued contact-less IC chip forms of identification: 運転免許書 {unten menkyosho} (driver's licences), 在留カード {zairyū kādo} (foreigner Residency Cards), 住基カード {jūki kādo}, etc.) In the case of driver's licenses you need two sets of four (4) digit PINs to access the chip.

Japan is very big on empowering people to see the contents of the IC chips in their identification. The motor vehicle departments that handle licenses, as well as the city and ward offices, usually have terminals (often self-serve) that allow you to examine the digitally recorded information inside your chips.

Because my child was born in the United States and to a (at the time) U.S. citizen, she also a natural-born U.S. citizen and has a U.S. passport and a U.S. birth certificate with a middle name. In order to make travel easy, everybody in my family has our "American" names in parenthesis on our passports so when my child uses a U.S. passport to enter the States, the family unit all has a name in common on our set of passport books from different countries.

However, the immigration officers do not input names of people that enter the country manually anymore, and rely in the scanning of the MRZ and/or the contact-less IC chip to put your name in the immigration computers. This means that our 別名 {betsumei} (alternate names) in our Japanese passports are not recorded anywhere in any country's immigration database.

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