Comment by mschuster91

Easy if you're government (every random cop on a traffic stop must be able to do that after all) but really REALLY hard for private entities.

The exception is anything that is accepted by airports for international travel aka, for you Americans, only a passport - ICAO 9303 is very detailed on how you can access the data stored on them. The specs and a basic understanding on how to communicate with smartcards are decent enough to get you to a readout in maybe a weekend worth of work. The authentication is either via a code derived from the MRZ or a dedicated access code printed on the document.