Gemalto has received its second consecutive five-year contract win from the US Government Printing Office (GPO) to deliver ICAO compliant electronic eCovers and secure pre-personalization services. GPO will supply the complete ePassport book and related services to The Department of State for issuance to US citizens.

Gemalto has been a primary supplier to the GPO since the inception of the ePassport, which began deployment in 2005. During this new contract assessment phase, the company says its Sealys solution was thoroughly evaluated and confirmed to meet the agency requirements for privacy protection, production yield, durability and communications performance. Since 2005, the GPO has produced more than 80 million passports containing secure electronic devices.

“ePassports provide effective, efficient and rapid passage through border control points, addressing two major concerns for the Department of State: ease of use and, above all, security,” says Neville Pattinson, senior vice president, Gemalto North America.  

Gemalto is delivering its technologies to a large number of ePassport programmes around the world. In the US it has already supplied more than 35 million smart card-based identity credentials to the Federal Government and its contractors, from both its Protiva range of IDCore Common Access Cards (CAC) and IDPrime PIV (Personal Identity Verification) cards, as well as its Sealys ePassports.