Bangladesh will move from machine readable to advanced electronic travel documents that meet the highest security standards. This includes high-tech color personalization technology to ensure the ultimate color brilliance of each ePassport holder’s image, improving visual verification. With more than 160 million inhabitants, Bangladesh is the world’s eighth most populous country and will provide the highest output of passports with color photos worldwide.
Major General Md Masud Rezwan, director general of the DIP, said: “Our citizens will get benefits from the ICAO*-compliant ePassports with convenient and secure travel. With Veridos’s unique solution portfolio for the entire value chain for passports and their ID production expertise, we have found the perfect company to implement this turnkey project. With their support, we can enhance the technology by which we can assemble the ePassport booklets in Bangladesh. This creates highly skilled jobs and know-how transfer with Germany.”
Niels Annen, Minister of State at the German Federal Foreign Office, was present during the signing ceremony of the contract and underlined: “Through the technological partnership with Germany, Bangladesh will gain crucial expertise to prepare it for various challenges, whether we are talking about fighting counterfeit ID documents or terrorism. Furthermore, a comprehensive transfer of technology and capacity-building in Bangladesh will take place. As a result of our cooperation, Bangladeshi passport holders will soon become the owners of one of the most sophisticated and secure types of passport in the world.”
Hans Wolfgang Kunz, Veridos CEO, said: “We are delighted to support Bangladesh in their transition to tamper-proof ePassports. The project covers the whole process for travel document issuance. It starts with enrolment, data management, and personalization – all based on our well-proven IMAGO software. In addition, we will provide public key infrastructure and local document production. At the same time, we will establish state-of-the-art border control infrastructure including our VeriGO® verification platform and the set-up of 50 eGates for automated border control at all international airports, seaports, and land ports in the country.”
For more information on the project, visit our Success Story on Bangladesh page.
*ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization)