MRZs are available in three different formats, called Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3. Klippa is able to read and process all three types of the MRZ automatically. On passports the Type 3 is commonly used. It contains two lines of 44 characters each that can be read using OCR. They contain characters A-Z, 0-9 and separators. The MRZ always contains a checksum to confirm the validity.
MRPs (machine readable passports) are passports that can be automatically read and processed using OCR software. Parsing the MRZ using passport OCR is an important part of our data extraction. The machine readable zone was introduced in the 1980s and is implemented on most modern day passports.