HID Global Wins Ireland Passport Contract. HID Global was awarded Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) contract for the Passport Issuance and Processing System. The contract saw HID Global provide a new operating system for the Department’s Passport Service.
Thales Wins District of Columbia Driving Licence Contract. Thales was awarded a new contract to provide the District of Columbia Department of Motor Vehicles (DC DMV) with secure driving licences and ID cards. The new DC driving licences and ID cards will have laser-engraved photos locked within a polycarbonate card body, and Thales added new security features to better protect the personal data of DC residents. Sentry Enterprises Raises $13 Million. Sentry Enterprises, the maker of the SentryCard biometric identity platform, announced that it had raised $13 million in a Series D preferred equity offering to scale operations and complete a strategic investment in X-Core Technologies.
Tender for European Digital Identity Wallet Pilots. The European Commission announced the launch of four large-scale pilots to test the deployment of the European Digital Identity Wallet. The pilots would deploy the European Digital Identity Wallet (DIW) in national eID ecosystems operated by member states. IATA Welcomes ICAO Health Master List. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) welcomed the creation by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) of a global directory (Health Master List) of public keys required for authentication of health credentials.
Veridos and GSI Sertracen Provide Costa Rica with ePassport Solution. The General Department of Migration and Immigration of Costa Rica awarded Veridos and GSI Sertracen with the contract for the supply, installation, and implementation of next-generation electronic passports and the associated personalisation system. Veridos will also supply its CLIP ID solution for improved colour image performance.
Groundbreaking Ceremony for New Ugandan Secure Printworks. The official groundbreaking ceremony for a new security document printworks took place in Entebbe, Uganda this month, with the start of production planned for end of 2023. France Announces User-Controlled Mobile Digital Identity App for Use with National ID. France announced a new system for proving digital identity via a smartphone app called ‘Service de garantie de l’identité numérique’ (SGIN) (translates as ‘Digital Identity Guarantee Service’). The system for automating the processing of personal information was jointly authorised by the Minister of the Interior (General Secretariat) and the National Agency for Secure Documents (ANTS).
Brazil Unveils New Passport and ID Card. The Brazilian federal government unveiled a new passport design and issued the first new national identity card (CIN). Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro attended the event. The new passport is themed and pays homage to all regions of Brazil through icons representing the biomes and culture of each location. Vietnam to Introduce New Passports. The Ministry of Public Security issued new-style passports this month. Each page of the new passport was printed with Vietnamese scenery and cultural heritage, such as Hung King Temple (Phu Thọ Province), Hạ Long Bay (Quang Ninh Province), Hue Citadel and Hoi An Ancient Town.
US Government Working on Unique Identity for Immigrants. The Biden administration announced that it will create a new identification card for immigrants that will serve as a single card to access immigration files and eventually be accepted by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for travel. NIST Announces Winners of Quantum-Resistant Cryptographic Systems. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a US government lab that publishes standards for government agencies to safely use cryptography, announced the winners of a six-year- long competition to create quantum- safe algorithms.
Greece Rolls Out Digital ID Cards and Driving Licences. The Greek government began rolling out the Gov.gr Wallet for both Android and Apple devices, enabling citizens to generate digital documents that can be used in Greece in the same way as their physical ID card or driving licence. It incorporates a QR code and unique document code that allow a document’s authenticity to be verified by officials. The Weaponising of Identity. The mass naturalisation of Ukrainians living in the Russian-occupied areas of the country is deemed a failure as the world perceives holders of such IDs as a security threat.
The Royal Face of Things to Come. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully at her country estate in Balmoral, Scotland on 8 September. During her time on the throne, the Queen’s highly recognisable features were captured in several issues of UK banknotes, stamps and secure government documents. In addition, the wording on the inside cover of the UK passport reads ‘in the Name of Her Majesty’. Nepal’s First ePassport from IDEMIA. IDEMIA had already provided national ID cards, an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and Machine- Readable Passports (MRPs) to the country, and now add an ePassport.
150,000 Passport Numbers Exposed in Optus Hack. Australian telecommunications company, Optus, confirmed that of the 9.8 million whose data were accessed, they believed 7.7 million do not need to replace documents. That could be because their identity document data was not collected, was not recorded properly, or is out of date and cannot be used to verify their identity. De La Rue Extends Australian Passport Contract. De La Rue announced that it had entered into a five-year extension of its contract with Note Printing Australia (NPA) for the sole-source supply of polycarbonate data pages for Australian passports.
Belize Launches New ePassport. After a year and a half of planning, the administration introduced a new passport. The travel document, along with a new electronic passport issuance and control system, succeeds an older process that was considered open to fraud. Cayman Islands Propose ID Card and Digital Identity Register. The Cayman Islands government gazetted two bills – the Identification Register Bill and the Cayman Islands Identification Card Bill – for the creation of a digital identity register and the issuance of ID cards to improve how residents interact with the government.
G20 Declaration to ‘Build on Success’ of Vaccine Passports. The declaration reads: ‘We support continued international dialogue and collaboration on the establishment of trusted global digital health networks as part of the efforts to strengthen prevention and response to future pandemics.’
