e-Passport Solution Successfully Delivered in Ireland

The Irish Government's e-Passport project has been successfully delivered. Development of an e-Passport was key for the Irish government, which needed to have a biometric passport in place before October 26, 2006 to meet requirements of the United States visa waiver program. Meeting the waiver program's aggressive schedule had serious implications for Ireland, as it is one of the top 10 visiting nations to the U.S., with an estimated 500,000 Irish citizens visiting the country last year. The bulk of these visits were visa free.

BearingPoint worked to implement Ireland's e-Passport solution in line with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards in just seven months, including rigorous third- party testing procedures and other trials. The project involved creating a new, high-tech passport that includes secure electronic chips to store an encrypted digital version of the holder's identity.

Special features of Ireland's new e-Passport include:

• Securely-stored biographical information and digital image identical to the information visually displayed in the passport
• Contactless microchip embedded in the passport that allows information to be read by special chip readers at a close distance
• Digital signature technology to verify the authenticity of the data stored on the chip, alerting officials is the information has been tampered with

BearingPoint modified Ireland's Automated Passport System (APS) to allow the capture of biometric information from the applicant's photograph, and to ensure this was encoded in the e-Passport document in a secure fashion. The Irish Government is also introducing facial recognition technology to coincide with the release of the e-Passport. This technology will be used to improve identity verification and reduce identity-related fraud.

"BearingPoint is proud to have played a key part in helping the Government of Ireland in its passport upgrade project," said Paul Toner, senior vice president of BearingPoint's EMEA Public Sector practice.