More details of French ePassport emerge

Following this month’s news that the French authorities have started rolling out ePassports, Thales has provided more information on its role in the scheme.

The company will be providing the government printing office (Imprimerie Nationale) with a complete secure system for the production and personalisation of the new passports. According to Thales, its system – based on an integrated and modular architecture  – can personalise almost five million biometric passports per year.

Thales will also be responsible for handling production requests from the Ministry of the Interior and Regional Development and passing them to the personalisation system.

Thales’ involvement in the French ePassport follows its 2005 announcement that it had won the contract for Morocco’s first smart card-based national ID card.