How do I know if I have a machine-readable passport?

A machine readable passport (MRP) is one where the data on the identity page is encoded in optical character recognition format. This machine readable zone (MRZ) is located at the bottom of the identity page below the picture. On most passports it spans 2 lines of 44 characters each and contains your name, passport number, nationality, date of birth, gender, and expiration date, as well as additional country-specific information. Many countries began to issue machine readable travel documents in the 1980s and today most passports worldwide are machine-readable. To be sure yours is just look for the two long lines of text at the bottom of the picture page.