IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

The government of the Republic of Macedonia has awarded international technology group Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) a contract to provide the country with electronic passports, personal identity cards, and driver's licenses, as well as a corresponding, combined system for personalization of the documents.

Work on the project is scheduled to begin this year, with the project itself expected to take a total of 11 years to complete. The first electronic passports and ID cards are due to be issued to the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia as early as 2006.

The order covers delivery of 1.5 million passport documents with integrated microchips, 1.8 million personal identity cards, and 500,000 driver’s licenses. In addition to the documents, G&D will be supplying equipment for centralized personalization and decentralized data acquisition as well as centralized data storage and preparation. The international smart card manufacturer will also handle system integration and upkeep through a maintenance agreement. The overall deal is worth roughly €23.5 million.

The Republic of Macedonia is one of the first Eastern European countries to introduce a passport containing a chip (e-passport). The passports, each with an integrated contactless chip, meet both the specifications of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the guidelines of the European Union. The ICAO, a United Nations’ special agency, is tasked with, among other things, the standardization and security of air traffic and the formulating of rules and recommendations for machine-readable travel documents such as chip passports.

The biometric chip storage carries not only the personal information such as name, birth date, and place of birth already printed inside the passport, but also stores a fingerprint used as a distinct biometric trait for identifying the bearer. To store the data, the e-passport comes equipped with a 64-kilobyte microchip. The chip's operating system from G&D offers maximum speed and security.

Quelle: Publictechnology, 02.12.2005