Electrically controlled reflective films, as presented by Younjung Park and Heeyeon Kim of NANOSILIKHAN Advanced Materials, have taken a class of technologies long known in smart glazing and displays and adapted it specifically for high-security identification documents.

Kyrgyzstan has begun issuing a redesigned 2025-series biometric passport and matching national ID card, introduced on 3 November. The new travel document aligns with ICAO specifications and is being produced domestically following a government modernisation drive at state printer Uchkun OJSC.

Saudi Arabia’s new Foreign Property Ownership Law, set to take effect in January 2026, represents a landmark in the Kingdom’s digital ID transformation – as it depends almost entirely on an electronic identity infrastructure for its implementation.

The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), in the US, has launched Virginia Mobile ID, a smartphone-based version of the state driving licence or ID card, now available as a free app on iOS and Android.

Since 1 July, Bernd Kümmerle has been serving as Chief Executive Officer of Veridos, a global leader in secure identity solutions. With nearly 30 years of experience at Giesecke+Devrient (G+D), he brings deep industry expertise and a clear strategic vision to the role. We spoke to him about his first 100 days in office, the future of secure identity, and Veridos’ role in shaping it.

The deadline for submitting your abstract for presenting at the 2026 High Security Printing™ (HSP) EMEA conference, taking place in Rabat, Morocco from 9-11 February 2026, is fast approaching. High Security Printing™ EMEA is the leading forum for banknotes, passports, ID cards and secure documents across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Published for the Optical & Digital Document Security™ (ODDS) community, this peer-reviewed volume is a record of the 2025 conference held in Warsaw, Poland, from 16-17 September. The conference was organised by Reconnaissance International with guidance from the ODDS Technical Committee. The proceedings offer a concise, authoritative snapshot of the field, with contributions from industry, academia and government.

At the ICAO TRIP Symposium in Montreal this year, TOPPAN Security introduced CHROMA, a laser-based colour personalisation technology that aims to remove the longstanding trade-off between portrait quality and document security in polycarbonate identity documents. With claims to be the first laser system to deliver full-colour, photo-realistic portraits engraved within a polycarbonate body, CHROMA is targeted at passports, ID cards and other government-issued credentials.

Two announcements in October highlight how differently the US and Europe are approaching digital identity.

Entrust’s new 2026 Identity Fraud Report – The Changing Face of Fraud highlights how national ID cards have become the soft underbelly of global identity systems. Compared with ePassports and many driving licences, ID cards often carry fewer physical and digital security features and can be governed by less stringent issuance processes. As a result, they represent a disproportionate share of fraudulent ID documents detected in remote onboarding and KYC checks, making them a key target for organised crime.

Germany has begun preparing for a phased transition to a quantum-secure national identity card, aiming to safeguard the cryptographic integrity of its identity infrastructure against future quantum threats. The initiative is a collaboration between the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community, Bundesdruckerei, G+D, Infineon Technologies AG, and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

Hueck Folien has successfully commissioned a new high-vacuum vapour deposition facility at its headquarters in Baumgartenberg, Austria. The €8.6 million investment, announced in September 2024, includes both a new metallisation system and associated infrastructure upgrades, and marks a major advance in the company’s production of high-performance coatings for the security sector.

Two announcements in October highlight how differently the US and Europe are approaching digital identity. Apple confirmed that US users will soon be able to store their passport as a digital ID in Apple Wallet, allowing them to verify their identity at selected TSA checkpoints. A few taps on your phone and your identity lives alongside your boarding pass, credit cards, car hire and hotel reservation. Days earlier, the European Commission announced €15 million in new funding to accelerate development and certification of EUDI Wallets across member states.

The 22nd annual CLARCIEV (Latin American and Caribbean Council for Civil Registries, Identity and Vital Statistics) conference was held from 1-2 October in San Salvador, marking one of the most well-attended editions in recent years. The event drew delegations from 22 countries and, for the first time, included a parallel exhibition area showcasing technology providers specialising in secure identity systems, biometric enrolment, document personalisation, and data management.

Thales has unveiled MultiApp 5.2 Premium PQC, which it claims is the world’s first smartcard certified to resist attacks from quantum computers.

Picture a quiet, rainy Sunday night in rural North Dakota. The roads are empty – until a car suddenly speeds past. A highway patrol officer pursues the speeding driver and signals them to pull over. Stepping out into the drizzle, the officer approaches the driver and asks for identification.

A new biometric barcode protocol from FaceTec promises to close the gap between documents and their holders – merging cryptography, biometrics and QR technology into a single, privacy-preserving identity layer.

As artificial intelligence becomes ever more important to document authentication, new research warns that its strengths can also be its weaknesses. A study presented at the 2025 Optical & Digital Document Security™ conference in Warsaw shows how adversarial attacks can fool even the most accurate AI systems into verifying counterfeit documents as genuine.

Passport photos are a prime target for fraud. Veridos’ technology makes it possible to add virtually tamperproof, razor-sharp, lifelike colour images to passports.

Reconnaissance invites proposals for papers to be presented at High Security Printing™ EMEA, taking place from 9-11 February 2026 in Rabat, Morocco’s elegant capital and a UNESCO World Heritage site.