| The Republic of Armenia with e-identity cards and passports from PWPW | |
| (30-11-2012) |
Over 5 thousand citizens of the Republic of Armenia have already collected e-identity cards and biometric passports produced in Poland. The documents and systems used for their issue were supplied by PWPW. The contract between the Armenian government and our company was signed in July 2011 during the official visit of the President of the Republic of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski, in that country. Our company won the tender, defeating competitors from the strict world top.
In accordance with the contractual provisions, PWPW implemented a system for central personalization of electronic ID cards and biometric passports communicated with the Armenian state registers. PWPW launched posts for the submission of applications and collection of biometric features of citizens in 61 offices throughout the Republic of Armenia. For the next five years, our company will deliver passport booklets (300 thousand items in total) and polycarbonate e-identity card forms (one million items).
– “The Republic of Armenia is one of the countries which don’t have a native banknote and document producer, hence it organizes international tenders for their production”, explains Krzysztof Żarnotal, the President of the Management Board of PWPW – “Such contracts are sought after the world's top document manufacturers".
Both documents for the Republic of Armenia are produced in accordance with the European Union and United States government guidelines. They are the first Armenian documents to combine technologies such as biometrics, cryptography and wireless data transfer. The new passports and identity cards will feature a biometric face image based on a photograph taken at the office. Furthermore, biometric passports feature the records of two fingerprints safeguarded in accordance with the latest ICAO and European Union technical requirements.
Thanks to the encryption keys placed in the microchip of the identity card, the latter is going to serve not only as an identification document, but also as an electronic signature card, which will make the contact with public administration significantly easier for the citizens.
The production of electronic passports and ID cards for Armenia is not the first foreign contract of Polish Security Printing Works. Earlier, the company carried out a similar project for the Republic of Lithuania, elaborating a system for personalization of electronic passports and supplying 5 types of biometric passports and travel documents to that country. PWPW also supplies or supplied secured paper for passport booklets for, among others, Slovakia, Turkey, Montenegro and Cambodia. At present, our company is performing a few-year contract for the delivery of passport booklets for Bangladesh.