Veridos GmbH has officially signed a contract with Nepal’s Department of Passports (DoP) for the production of biometric passports, following an international competitive tendering process. The agreement, announced at the end of July, covers Package 2 of the project—comprising the supply of secure ePassport booklets, personalisation infrastructure, quality control systems, and packaging.

Chester Racecourse, acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the oldest operational racecourse in the world, has implemented a digital ticketing system using HID’s Event Management Platform (EMP).

I don’t know whether, like me, you saw a latex face mask staring back at you from a display cabinet at Identity Week Europe, Amsterdam? I had to explore further.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reintroduced a sweeping biometric data collection rule aimed at expanding surveillance across all national borders. Originally drafted under the first Trump administration, the revised regulation mandates facial recognition scans and other biometric captures from virtually all non-US citizens upon entry and exit – including children.

Kenya has launched its next-generation electronic passport, developed in partnership with Veridos, featuring enhanced security architecture and a design framework aligned with national representation.

At the High Security Printing™ (HSP) Latin America conference (9-11 June 2025), an exclusive physical ‘event passport’ was introduced for participants.

Driving digital transformation, Ms Selamawit Dawit has played a pivotal role in elevating Ethiopia’s global presence and modernising its public services. Now serving as Director General of Ethiopia’s Immigration and Citizenship Services (ICS), she brings a wealth of experience from diplomacy, public administration, and policy leadership, having previously served as Director General of the Diaspora Agency and State Minister of Tourism.

‘This is the dawn of the second decade in our pursuit of Identity for All in Africa,’ declared Dr Joseph Atick, Executive Chairman of ID4Africa, in his opening address at the Movement’s 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The programme for the 2025 Optical & Digital Document Security™ (ODDS) conference (15-17 September, Warsaw) has now been finalised, reaffirming its position as the definitive technical forum for physical, digital, and virtual document security. Built by a globally respected technical committee, the agenda spans eight themed sessions and offers a balance of discovery science, applied innovation, and real-life applications.

Digital transformation affects all areas of life, including identity documents. The debate as to whether physical ID documents should be phased out in favour of fully digital solutions is still continuing, but has recently lost some of its verve, and for good reason. From a security perspective, and from a merely practical viewpoint, for many use cases, physical identity documents remain irreplaceable. They are, and will continue to be, the anchor of trust for establishing a person’s identity.

While identity documents and secure credentials form the majority of the content in this newsletter, ID & Secure Document News™ also has a remit to cover the use of technology to provide an identity to the products that we consume. As the digital infrastructure of the EU evolves, the Digital Product Passport (DPP) is emerging as a core regulatory instrument for product traceability and lifecycle data.

As the rollout of mobile driving licences (mDLs) gathers momentum across the US, a parallel movement in the opposite direction is questioning the privacy implications of these digital credentials. Spearheaded by the ‘No Phone Home’ campaign, privacy advocates are mounting a challenge to what they see as a creeping erosion of civil liberties.

While identity documents and secure credentials form the majority of the content in this newsletter, ID & Secure Document News™ also has a remit to cover the use of technology to provide an identity to the products that we consume. As the digital infrastructure of the EU evolves, the Digital Product Passport (DPP) is emerging as a core regulatory instrument for product traceability and lifecycle data.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is making a renewed effort to expand biometric surveillance at national borders, reviving a rule initially proposed under the first Trump administration. The rule mandates the collection of facial images and other biometric identifiers from nearly all non-US citizens entering or exiting the country, including minors.

The US Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) has launched the ID document authenticity track of the Remote Identity Validation Rally (RIVR), following its 2023–2024 evaluation of remote identity verification systems at the Maryland Test Facility. The earlier Remote Identity Validation Technology Demonstration (RIVTD) trials revealed significant variability in document authentication performance, particularly when validating state-issued IDs captured via smartphones or webcams under uncontrolled conditions.

The debate around biometric authentication continues to evolve, driven not only by technical innovation and operational efficiency, but increasingly by questions of privacy, data stewardship and consumer trust. A recent $1.4 billion settlement between Google and the state of Texas has once again spotlighted the fragility of public confidence in biometric systems – and how quickly that confidence can be eroded when privacy safeguards fail.

Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) has signed a share transfer agreement to acquire a 75% stake in Rubicon SEZC, the Cayman Islands-based holding company of the Laxton group.

In an article recently published in Securing Industry, Dr Mark Deakes, chair of the new International Optical Technologies Association (IOTA), sets out how optical technologies are spearheading efforts to protect identity documents.

The High Security Printing™ (HSP) Latin America 2025 conference was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 9-11 June. As a regional event dedicated to government-issued identity documents, banknotes, and secure document printing, it brought together key public and private sector stakeholders across Latin America. The identity stream of the event focused on the pressing challenges and innovations shaping civil ID and travel document security in the region.

Over the past year, I have found myself returning to a recurring theme: the transition from physical to digital identity is inevitable, but that transition is not without cost. With the growth of electronic identification (eID) systems comes a shift in both the nature and scale of identity-enabled financial crime.