Datacard scoops Guatemala deal

Datacard Group has been selected to supply card personalisation equipment and software for Guatemala’s new national ID system.

The country’s Registro Nacional de Personas (RENAP) intends to issue eID cards to more than 11 million residents as part of a process aimed at improving citizen authorisation and reducing benefits fraud. Card issuance began on 1 July 2009.

Guatemala’s new civil registry database will use an AFIS system with facial recognition biometrics. When citizens enrol in the programme, they will provide two fingerprints and a faceprint. These biometrics, along with the citizen’s biographic information, will be stored both in the civil registry database and on a smart chip embedded in the ID card.

Datacard says the polycarbonate cards supplied for the programme have an expected life span of up to 10 years. The cards are print personalised with laser engraved into the substrate. The company also reveals the card designs have three levels of security: those visible to casual visual inspection (level one), those visible using special enhanced visual inspection techniques (level two) and those that require laboratory or forensic inspection (level three).

This new eID programme will be rolled out immediately as Guatemala’s primary national ID card,” says Fred Ketcho, regional vice president of Americas Sales and Service for Datacard Group. “Once the entire infrastructure is in place countrywide, there are plans to use the cards for banking and services at other government facilities.”