Estonia Awards Electronic Passport Contract to Gemalto
Amsterdam and Tallinn, Estonia (ots/PRNewswire)
Gemalto (nasdaq: GEMP)(Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO), a world leader in digital security, announces today that it will supply the Citizenship and Migration Board of Estonian Republic with its e-passport solution for the future Estonian electronic passport. Under the terms of the contract, Gemalto will provide the Estonian authorities with a turnkey solution, from manufacturing and binding of passport booklets, using Gemalto Setec(i) technology, to the implementation of the personalization system in the premises of the Citizenship and Migration Board under the Ministry of Interior. First deliveries are scheduled to start in early 2007.
The agreement runs through 2012 with a possible extension to 2015. Considering present passports issuance rates and plans, it could involve up to one million electronic passports.
Under the contract, Gemalto manufactures the travel documents including a powerful microchip for biometric identification and delivers the complete personalisation system to Estonia. Furthermore, Gemalto provides the Estonian government with enrolment software and equipment for capturing and digitizing the data, picture and signature. This comprehensive solution for Estonian Ministry of Interior illustrates Gemalto's ability to handle the whole value chain in the e-passport management process.
"Gemalto is proud to have been selected by the Estonian authorities" said Jacques Seneca, President Europe at Gemalto. "This agreement is the continuity of our past collaboration on visas. With the implementation of our end-to-end solution, the authorities and citizens will benefit from the highest level of security and convenience, together with compliance with the global standard."
Gemalto's e-passport references include the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden and the United States of America.
(i) Setec is part of the Gemalto group (acquired in 2005). The Setec technology is incorporated in products such as biometric and visual passports, electronic and visual ID cards, driving licenses and health cards.
About Gemalto
Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is a leader in digital security with pro forma 2005 annual revenues of EUR1,7 billion ($2.2 billion), operations in 120 countries and 11,000 employees including 1,500 R&D engineers. The company's solutions make personal digital interactions secure and easy in a world where everything of value -from money to entertainment to identities- is increasingly represented as bits and bytes communicated over networks.
Gemalto thrives on creating and deploying secure platforms, portable and secure forms of software in highly personal objects like smart cards, SIMs, e-passports, readers and tokens. More than a billion people worldwide use the company's products and services for telecommunications, banking, e-government, identity management, multimedia content, digital rights management, IT security and other applications. Gemalto was formed in June 2006 by the combination of Axalto and Gemplus International S.A. For more information please visit www.gemalto.com.
Media contact:
Emmanuelle Saby
Telephone number : +33-(0)6-09-10-76-10
emmanuelle.saby@gemalto.com
Contact:
Media contact: Emmanuelle Saby, Telephone number :
+33-(0)6-09-10-76-10, emmanuelle.saby@gemalto.com