Gemplus Selected for Electronic Visa Pilot in France
Luxembourg (ots/PRNewswire)
- Gemplus supplies contactless smart card technology for French Government's border control initiative
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world's leading provider of smart card solutions, today announces that it has been selected to supply contactless smart card technology for the "Biodev" project, an initiative spearheaded by an ad-hoc grouping of European Member States for enhanced border control of immigrant visa holders inside the Schengen(1) area. Within this project, Gemplus is working closely with Sagem, who is the prime contractor.
In this first phase of the "Biodev" project, Gemplus has delivered smart cards based on "GemBorder"(2), its ICAO-compliant contactless chip technology for electronic passports and visas. The cards contain a built-in smart chip-antenna to be used for contactless authentication of biometrics data. GemBorder contains biometric information about the immigrant visa-holder, such as fingerprint details and facial features. The visa-holder is then authenticated against the information stored on the chip at immigration checkpoints. The card itself is carried in a cardholder pocket placed inside the passport books. The chip can also be delivered in the form-factor of an e-visa sticker placed inside the passport.
"It was critical for us to work with a vendor like Gemplus, whose technology not only strictly complies with the industry standards for electronic visa and passport applications, but also offers superior levels of performance and security", said Jean-Paul Jainsky, Sagem. "Gemplus and Sagem have experienced a long and successful partnership in the identity market, and with the Biodev project we are together entering a market space where the need for strong and reliable security is imperative to enhance European border control processes."
"The launch of the Biodev project demonstrates the French and other EU Governments' willingness to use the strong authentication enabled by smart card technology and biometrics", said Jacques Seneca, Executive Vice President of Gemplus' ID & Security Business Division. "Contactless smart card technology is today the preferred technology for border control applications, and is available through multiple form-factors including ID card, passport page inlay, and sticker labels. Not only will it help European Governments to gain reliable control of who is entering countries in the Schengen area, but it also creates convenience advantages for visa-holders through faster and more efficient security checks at airports."
Initially the project will be tested at the airports of Paris Roissy Charles de Gaulle, Paris Orly, Marseille, and Lyon in France, the Brussels airport in Belgium, and the port in Marseille, France. It involves French Consulates in 3 different countries for smart card-based Schengen visa issuance, with plans to eventually extend it to other countries.
About Gemplus
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP) is the world's leading player in the smart card industry in both revenue and total shipments (source: Gartner-Dataquest (2004), Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor.). It has sold over 5 billion smart cards.
With security at its core, and 2400 patents and patent applications produced by its innovative R&D team, Gemplus delivers a wide range of portable, personalized solutions in areas including Identity, Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Transport, Healthcare, WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, and access control.
Gemplus' revenue in 2004 was 865 million Euros.
www.gemplus.com
LUXEMBOURG, May 24 /PRNewswire/ --
For more information:
Carl Norell Vanessa Clarke
Gemplus Edelman
Tel: +1-215-390-2899 Tel: +44-(0)20-7344-1349
Email: carl.norell@gemplus.com Email: vanessa.clarke@gemplus.com(c)2005 Gemplus. All rights reserved. Gemplus, GemBorder and the Gemplus logo, are trademarks and service marks of Gemplus S.A. and are registered in certain countries. All other trademarks and service marks, whether registered or not in specific countries, are the property of their respective owners.
Some of the statements contained in this release constitute forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our or our industry's actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activities, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ materially. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated by the forward-looking statements contained in this release include, but are not limited to: trends in wireless communication and mobile commerce markets; our ability to develop new technology, and the effects of competing technologies developed and expected intense competition generally in our main markets; profitability of our expansion strategy; challenges to or loss of our intellectual property rights; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships in our major businesses; our ability to develop and take advantage of new software and services; and the effect of future acquisitions and investments on our share price. Moreover, neither we nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of this release. We are under no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after this date to conform such statements to actual results or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated results.
LUXEMBOURG, May 24 /PRNewswire/ --
(1) The Schengen treaty was first signed in 1985 between seven European
countries to end internal border checkpoints and controls. More
countries have joined over the past years. At present, there are 15
Schengen countries, all in Europe. These countries are: Austria,
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
(2) GemBorder, a contactless chip technology for electronic passports and
visas from Gemplus, complies with The International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) specifications by delivering a platform that
enables secure and flexible management of passport/visa holder
details on the chip, such as name, address, nationality, passport/
visa number etc., as well as a set of biometric data for strong
authentication features. The contactless chip, which can be inserted
as an inlay or sticker inside the passport/visa or used within a
standard ID3 datapage or ID1 smart card, acts as a miniature computer
that requires an OS to activate and govern multiple tasks and
applications. The GemBorder platform uses Gemplus technology to
manage all contactless identification functions associated with
electronic passports.Contact:
For more information: Carl Norell, Gemplus, Tel: +1-215-390-2899,
Email: carl.norell@gemplus.com; Vanessa Clarke, Edelman, Tel:
+44-(0)20-7344-1349, Email: vanessa.clarke@gemplus.com