Special awards have been made to those newly introduced personal ID document programmes that have demonstrated outstanding technical sophistication and the best in verification system infrastructure.
The Regional ID Document of the Year Awards form part of the industry’s High Security Printing EMEA Conference held recently in Malta and recognise the highest levels of achievement among Government passport and national identity card schemes.
Awards were made in three categories: Best New Passport, Best New National ID Card and Best New ID or Travel Document.
The first award went to the Immigration Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs of Tanzania for the new Tanzanian ePassport. Tanzania recently moved from a machine-readable booklet to the phased implementation of a complete electronic immigration (or ‘eImmigration’) system. The passport is one component of a complete ‘end-to-end’ system solution to support citizen enrolment, adjudication, personalisation, issuance and authentication along with border control and eVisa systems.
The new ePassport features a polycarbonate data page incorporating laser engraving technology, an optically variable feature and positive and negative embossing incorporating an MLI lens. The data page also carries an ICAO-compliant secure RFID microcontroller chip and operating system.
Other notable security printing features include end papers with duplex patterns and rainbow-split duct printing, as well as two colour intaglio printing incorporating a latent image and an optically variable print feature. Other features include the use of both visible and invisible inks, a Foredge registration feature and hidden page identifiers.
One of the benefits of the new ePassport solution is that the holder can have an emergency passport on their smart phone if their passport is stolen or lost in another country.
Best New National ID Card
In the Best New National ID Card category, the award went to the Police and Border Guard Board of Estonia, itself part of the Ministry of the Interior, for the new eID programme introduced in December last year.
The new cards use Estonia’s own font and elements of its national brand and feature a colour photograph, a transparent window and an invisible secondary photograph that will only appear when viewed from an angle. One new detail is the inclusion of a QR code which will make it easier to check the validity of the ID card.
The new eID card integrates a chip that allows contactless use in the future once service providers start offering corresponding solutions (validating public transport trips, for example). The chip on the new card carries embedded files and uses 2048-bit public key encryption, allowing its use as definitive proof of ID in an electronic environment.
Best New ID or Travel Document
The final award, recognising the Best New ID and Travel Document, went to Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt, the Federal Criminal Police Office and Bundesdruckerei, the country’s state printer, for the new EU Visa sticker project.
As part of the EU Commission’s Action Plan to strengthen the EU response to travel document fraud, all European Union Member States will be introducing the new EU visa sticker. The project was a result of the collective work under the EU Article 6 Committee and associated sub-group on the development of an improved uniform format visa.
The new EU sticker integrates improved chemical sensitisers, high level security background design, completely re-designed DOVID with improved features, improved intaglio inks and latent images, rip cuts and advanced UV elements.
Upgrade and secure personalisation
The sticker also has a ‘quiet zone’ reserved for a 2D barcode in order to upgrade and secure the personalisation of the sticker, which is seen as a good next step to incorporate digital security into the security document world.
The development project incorporates the distribution of a Best Practice Visa Kit and Technical Specification for 31 EU Member and Associate States. The Visa Kit and Technical Specification will also be used as Best Practice for the basis of the subsequent eResidence Permit Card Project.
*Further details of the High Security Printing EMEA Regional ID awards are available online here
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