The German government has chosen Philips RFID technology for its national smart passport roll-out, in which the secure ID solution will be implemented in the country''s passports.

     The German passport printing authority, the Bundesdruckerei GmbH, has selected (on behalf of German Ministry of Interior) a contactless smart card chip from Royal Philips Electronics, for use in the country''s smart passports. The secure chip will be used to hold personal information about the passport holder, thus reducing fraud and forgery of travel documents and increasing security for travellers. 116.30.151.81 This article is copyright 2005 UsingRFID.com.

     Driven largely by the USA''s visa waiver programme, which requires visitors to the country to present a machine readable passport when visiting the country for less than 90 days, governments around the world are implementing smart passports. Philips says it is working with a number of governments worldwide to develop solutions designed around current

and future security needs.Global efforts
     "As governments around the world look to implement smart passports, the decision by the Bundesdruckerei GmbH is a strong endorsement of our expertise in this arena," commented Reinhard Kalla, vice president and general manager of business line identification for Philips Semiconductors. "Smart passports enable greater levels of security than those provided by current passports, increasing safety for travellers and enabling governments to better protect their borders."

     The Philips chip used in the project has been certified by the German Federal Office of Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik), the central IT security service provider for the German government. It has received the organisation''s Common Criteria EAL5+ certification, and exceeds the specifications for smart passports set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). As the system provider for the project, Philips is working with various partners including Sokymat GmbH and T-Systems.

     The chip features Philips'' unique ultra low power handshaking technology, and meets the ISO/IEC14443 standard power range requirements. Having manufactured over 400 million contactless smart card chip modules to date, Philips offers its flat MOB4 chip package for smart passports in high volumes. The chip''s 72Kbyte EEPROM memory was designed to fulfil the needs of e-government projects, having the ability to hold biometric information such as fingerprints and facial images.

 

 

 

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