October 1, 2013 – by Peter B. Counter
Digital security provider Gemalto announced today that it has signed a five year contract with the Belgian Federal Public Service for Foreign Affairs that will see the secure document provider producing over 400,000 ePassports for the country’s national ID program every year.
The agreement will have Zetes, a specialist in mass enrollment, acting as the system integrator of this ambitious project. Gemalto will be supplying the documents themselves: durable, biometric, microprocessor incorporating passport booklets that can be read by contactless readers. Zetes’ responsibility in the contract will be the personalization and delivery of the ePassports.
Speaking in support of the Belgian Federal Public Service for Foreign Affairs’ decision, Zetes CEO Alain Wirtz said, “Gemalto and Zetes have the know-how necessary to ensure that the customer benefits from our successful experience of rolling out the Belgian eID cards, and this is why the national authorities have the continued confidence in our expert team. With 80 references in government programs worldwide, Gemalto was clearly positioned as a strong partner to meet the very high expectations of the Belgian ePassport project.”
To this, Frédéric Trojani, senior vice president of government programs at Gemalto, added: “Our successful experience acquired through a large number of national passport programs worldwide has clearly enabled this accomplishment, for the benefit of Belgian citizens and Public Service alike.”
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