According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), its mandate to develop machine readable travel documents (MRTDs) "is provided by Articles 22, 23 and 37 of the Chicago Convention which oblige Contracting States to develop and adopt international standards for customs, immigration and other procedures to facilitate the border-crossing processes involved in international air transport."

More specifically, "Developments in technology and problems experienced in practice with machine readable passports made it necessary to adjust and improve the specifications of Doc 9303 [a previously agreed approach]. Since the ICAO Panel on Passport Cards had been dissolved following publication of its Fifth Report in 1978, ICAO established a new group to succeed it, namely, the Technical Advisory Group on Machine Readable Passports (TAG/MRTD), which held its first meeting in June 1986." (Source, as visited on 30 June 2004)

The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) drafts and adopts detailed technical requirements, or "specifications", for the design of machine readable travel documents. According to the ICAO website, "These specifications are published in ICAO Doc 9303." The TAG also drafts guidance material to help States implement the specifications, and it publishes Technical Reports and Information Papers "to guide States and private industry on present and future aspects of its work."

ICAO's website on Machine Readable Travel Documents, as visited on 30 June 2004