Setec, a Gemplus Company, Delivers the First Volumes of Biometric Passports and Electronic Identity Cards to Sweden in a 100 million Euro Contract
Vantaa, Finland, November 3 (ots/PRNewswire)
- Setec and Gemplus's Security Products Meet the World's Most Demanding Security Requirements - ICAO and EU
Setec, Northern Europe's leading developer and manufacturer of visual and electronic card products, and a Gemplus company, announces today that it has begun the mass delivery of the new biometric passports and national identity cards with a function for electronic services (EID cards) for Sweden.
In October 2005, Sweden began to deploy nationwide passports embedded with a micro-chip, compliant with the international requirements of the ICAO, International Civil Aviation Organization, and the European Union. As such, the new Swedish passports, and the EID cards, meet the world's most demanding security requirements. Alongside the actual passport, Setec is also providing a comprehensive information processing system for the personalization of the biometric passports and EID cards and for the security calculation services.
This follows the 2004 multi-year agreement between the Swedish authorities and Setec's Swedish joint-venture AB Svenska Pass to deliver biometric passports.
This agreement also includes the delivery of the national Swedish EID cards. These cards contain two microchips; one for traveling purposes within Schengen countries similar to the biometric passport, and the other for identification, for example when logging onto networks to access various electronic services. The value of the agreement is in excess of EUR100 million.
The new passports and the EID cards will initially store in the micro-chips the personal data of each holder along side their digitally formatted facial image. Fingerprints may be included in a second phase.
"Sweden is a leading player when it comes to biometric identification, both in Europe and on the international scene. The Swedish passport and EID cards are based on remarkably safe and sophisticated smart card products that make them hard to forge. The cooperation with the Swedish authorities has worked very well, thus enabling us to develop the products and to start the mass deliveries in the time agreed," said Pekka Eloholma, President and CEO, Setec.
"The evolution of the Swedish passports has actually been bigger than just introducing a new biometric passport for our citizens. At the same time we have created a totally new and a very demanding information processing system together with Setec. The amount of work behind this project has been tremendous and the outcome is excellent. We are proud to be one of the first two countries to start a nationwide deployment of biometric passports in October," stated Lars Karlsand, Principal Administrative Officer at the Swedish National Police Board.
Also, Setec has begun to manufacture Norway's biometric passports and has been chosen to deliver also their technology to several other countries including Denmark. Currently, Setec manufactures and personalizes conventional, i.e. visual passports for Denmark and Finland.
Setec has been a Gemplus company since June 2005. The combined references and contract volume deliveries make Gemplus the undisputed leader in the electronic passport and identity card market.
About Gemplus and Setec
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 2005, Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor). It has sold over 5.5 billion smart cards.
Gemplus delivers a wide range of secure, portable, personalized solutions in areas including Identity, Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Transport, Healthcare, WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, and access control.
Setec, a Gemplus company acquired in 2005, develops, manufactures and delivers products that require extreme security, such as biometric and visual passports, electronic and visual ID cards, EMV cards and SIM cards. Setec's major customers are public authorities, banks, and telecom operators. The company has operations in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Poland. It employs 400 people.
Gemplus's revenue in 2004 was EUR865 million.
www.gemplus.com
www.setec.com
For further information, please contact:
Tuula Wäyrynen Jane Strachey
Corporate Communications Manager Gemplus Press Relations Manager
+358-(0)989-41-4532, +33(0)442364661
+358-40-824-3459 +33(0)676493593
tuula.wayrynen@setec.com Jane.strachey@gemplus.com(c)2005 Gemplus. All rights reserved. Gemplus, the Gemplus logo, and SafesITe 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.
Contact:
For further information, please contact: Tuula Wäyrynen, Corporate
Communications Manager, +358-(0)989-41-4532, +358-40-824-3459,
tuula.wayrynen@setec.com. Jane Strachey, Gemplus Press Relations
Manager, +33(0)442364661, +33(0)676493593, Jane.strachey@gemplus.com