Britain's new 10-year electronic passports carry a two-year warranty only, parliamentary spending watchdogs have revealed.
The National Audit Office has raised fears that the multi-billion pound introduction of the British ePassport, which began to be issued at the end of last year, may not be capable of withstanding 10 years of use by travellers.
The Home Office's Identity and Passport Service (IPS) is expected to spend £448m over 12 years with its supplier, Security Printing and Systems, to provide the passport chip units alone.
But the National Audit Office has said that there are question marks over the durability of the technology.
The revelation has attracted criticism from the opposition, which is already concerned at the government's record of overspends on new IT schemes.
It comes in the wake of claims that the likely cost of the government's controversial plan to introduce a digital identity card scheme, which features the controversial national identity register which will store everyone's biometric fingerprints and photographs, is likely to far exceed its own estimate of £5.4bn over 10 years.
Some 70% of the sum was expected to be spent on issuing the new generation of biometric passports, due to be the forerunner of the ID cards, and 15% would go on the technology for the project.
A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) said IPS was keeping the issue "under review".
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "How many more times must the consequences of the government's incompetence hit the taxpayer? And this from the people who want to run the ID cards project.
"This is another reason why ID cards are a bad idea."
A Home Office spokesman said: "Following rigorous testing of the biometric assembly, IPS has full confidence in the quality of the new ePassport."
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