Gemalto Provides National e-ID Cards
Gemalto announced it is delivering electronic ID cards to the National Information Center (NIC), the IT entity of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior. The Identification Card-Phase 2 program extends the country’s initial electronic ID initiative launched in December 2007. As part of the new contract, Gemalto will provide NIC with e-ID cards for the next three years, as well as support and maintenance for the centralized personalization center in Riyadh. The national ID card is mandatory for all citizens above 15 and valid for 10 years.
The Saudi Arabia national ID card is a wallet-sized card that embeds a microprocessor containing the cardholder’s digital information such as demographics, facial image and fingerprints. It also features a bar code and an optical stripe to ensure enhanced security to citizens. The national ID card can be used as a travel document that facilitates legitimate travel within all GCC countries. In addition, the e-ID card offers strong authentication to enable citizens to prove their identity. Digital signature is also available through a Public Key Infrastructure application.
In the first phase of the ID program, Gemalto delivered high-end e-ID cards and its Coesys Issuance personalization solution. Gemalto’s Coesys Issuance consists of the combination of software, hardware and integration services to enable NIC to personalize and issue the e-ID cards with the highest level of security. The company also installed the centralized card personalization system operated by NIC in Riyadh.
Gemalto also announced it is delivering 900,000 of its Sealys Laser-Secured e-ID cards, commissioned by the Ministry of Interior of Lithuania. The Gemalto e-ID card is made of polycarbonate, with all personal data laser-engraved in the card, to ensure the highest level of security and the utmost durability. The national ID card is mandatory for all citizens above 16 and also serves as a travel document in all EU countries. National rollout started on January 5, 2009. Gemalto delivers the cards to its local partner Lodvila, a security printing company in Lithuania and main contractor of the project.
This card, the size of a credit card, features contactless technology for identity verification at border crossings, based on fingerprint check. It also embeds a contact microprocessor which contains a certificate for on-line identification and a qualified certificate for electronically signing official documents such as contracts and declarations.
Lithuania determined to deploy this national ID card in order to allow citizens to travel freely between Member States, as well as to benefit from national and European e-government services. With this e-ID card, Lithuania has taken the first step towards the implementation of the European Citizen Card standard.
Giesecke & Devrient; Mt. Sinai Medical Center to Deploy 100,000 Giesecke & Devrient Patient Health Cards
Giesecke & Devrient (G&D), working with EXTENSION, Inc. and TrustBearer Labs, has developed a smart card-based solution that lets health care providers manage the security requirements outlined in the President’s economic stimulus bill. EXTENSION, Inc. has integrated the G&D Patient Health card and TrustBearer Access authentication software with EXTENSION® software to create EXTENSION® Health Connect. This solution has been deployed at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. The first G&D patient health cards were issued on April 1, 2009.
EXTENSION® Health Connect provides highly secure, fast and accurate patient identification and information exchange. It securely links data, patients, and healthcare providers together in order to reduce administrative costs and improve the patient experience. EXTENSION® Health Connect uses G&D patient health cards to securely identify patients to hospital information systems. The card also holds a personal health record for each patient that can be securely accessed. “Accurate patient identification is a critical issue in healthcare especially as we expand the use of electronic medical records and health information exchanges. These new health cards will ensure that patients are securely and accurately linked with their personal medical information across multiple institutions and care providers, reducing administrative burdens, improving patient care and satisfaction,” said Paul Contino, vice president of information technology at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Health care organizations implementing electronic health records (EHR) need a way to securely identify patients and to safely access health information. EXTENSION® Health Connect is the first to offer a smart card program which successfully meets these needs with an easy to implement, affordable, solution. G&D uses their significant health card experience to provide a key component of this solution.
Congress incorporated the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act into the President’s economic stimulus bill. The new law provides $19 billion to standardize and secure the creation, access, and sharing of electronic health information, a vital component of health care reform. The law also includes financial incentives for health care providers to use electronic health records (EHR). EXTENSION® Health Connect with G&D patient health cards helps meet the information security goals of this law by providing a highly secure method for access and authentication to health information and EHR.
The new law provides stricter enforcement of security requirements than the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This will also help boost public confidence in how health records are used, disclosed, and protected. “The use of G&D patient health cards as part of EXTENSION® Health Connect supports patient privacy and data security,” said David Corcoran, CEO of TrustBearer Labs. “The solution also streamlines operational processes to reduce health care administrative costs.”
Melzer Announces CLI/MLI – Precision is Trump, 10 Layers and More
Many of the MRTDs, ECCs, e-NIDs etc. have a CLI or MLI as additional security feature. Additional means that various security features may be applied to both sides of the documents (like CLI/MLI or micro lettering/latent image). No matter how many security features are finally selected, it is important that all features are precisely applied and match the front and backside print image. All these features consisting of different materials like PC-foils, holograms, kinegrams, threads etc. need to fit to each other and have to be positioned along with the prelam. This is almost impossible when using a traditional production process with sheet laminators.
The MELZER production process, however, precisely gathers all these materials by using ultrasonic spot welding and register holes. The two endless lamination belts were preprocessed and already have the desired structure. The lower lamination belt carries the register pins gearing into the register holes of the material. To ensure the precise position, the upper lamination belt has got suitable holes to fix the material during the lamination process when the structures on the lamination belts are transferred to the documents with an unsurpassable precision of 0.1 - 0.2 mm tolerance.
This easy can a highly complicated industrial production process be. The preprocessing of the lamination belts is done by VTT acc. to the customer’s specification.
In the field of ECC, e-NID and e-driver license highest standards are set in respect to material, security technology, personalization, long-life cycle etc. This increasingly features PC as durable and laserable material. Of course prelams and printed materials come in sheets. However, in order to match the ISO thickness of the documents in total, the additional foils used have to be much thinner. Partially such thin PC-foils even have a printed security feature. The biggest problem though is the collation with sheets in synchronized speed.
MELZER found the ideal solution for gathering sheet and reel materials. It allows to precisely fix the thinnest PC-foils coming in reels to the prelaminated and printed sheets. This is done with an accuracy of 0.1 - 0.2 mm tolerance. Unthinkable for sheet collating. This method is supported by our patented lamination process. Eight small flat-bed laminators are heated to < 200 °C and four small flat-bed laminators subsequently cooled down to 20 °C within only 30 seconds (PC-material). These 12 small laminators transport the PC-material via endless lamination belts. Register pins ensure the precision during and after the lamination process.
Oberthur Unveils GICS Prototype
Oberthur Technologies has delivered the first prototypes of the Generic ID Card Command Set (GICS) card compatible with Microsoft Windows 7. ID-One GICS, an identity applet, has been developed to answer the needs for a generic card command set that provides functionalities required by both government and corporate applications. Backward compatible with PIV, this product offers data management, enhanced cryptographic protocols that are compliant with NIST recommendations and is based on the standardization work done under ANSI INCITS.
ID-One GICS card is designed to be integrated into any card management system and offers a logical and physical access control. This card is available for any governmental identity or corporate applications. ID-One GICS will soon be certified FIPS 140-2 level 3, level which is required by the U.S. government.
Oberthur Technologies and Microsoft worked together through the latest specification to define a mini driver. Microsoft’s’ minidriver is a plug in translating each smart cards’ features to a unique interface designed by Microsoft for Windows 7. Minidriver v7 offers new functionalities such as automatic smart card recognition and the use of the latest NSA-recommended cryptographic algorithms.
Travel Tags’ Lenticular Cards
Travel Tags, Inc., an IGH Solutions Company announced it has received notification from the United States Patent and Trademark Office stating that, within the next several weeks, Travel Tags will be awarded three additional United States patents covering lenticular cards, including the production of lenticular cards.
“We work with our skilled R&D team to bring our ideas to life in ways our customers never thought possible,” said John Tomczyk, VP of innovation at Travel Tags, “that is how we continually push the boundaries of lenticular in many of our product applications.”
One such product, this unique and superior lenticular card was created using the skill and expertise that Travel Tags has accumulated throughout more than 30 years as a producer of specialty printing and manufacturing of lenticular products.