Three millionth German ePassport delivered

03 April 2007

Bundesdruckerei has announced that it delivered the three millionth German ePassport this week. Germany was one of the first countries world-wide to introduce the electronic passport in November 2005 and around 60,000 electronic passports are now ordered every week.

Bundesdruckerei is the general contractor for the German ePassport project and supplies the more than 6,000 passport authorities with a range of system components, from the DIGANT module for citizens’ registration procedures and the software for passport photo quality assurance through to ePassport readers at the hardware end.

Starting in November this year, fingerprint images will be stored in the chip of the ePassport. Bundesdruckerei has already prepared the security infrastructure which is required for this application, and will equip the passport authorities with fingerprint scanners and software for checking fingerprint quality.

The extended access control (EAC) mechanism is designed to protect the fingerprint scan against misuse. In 2006, Bundesdruckerei used this protection system in conjunction with an access control solution during the World Cup football championship.