Entrust Continues Leadership by Adding Support for Next-generation E-Passports

DALLAS - Domestic and global security threats, coupled with rapidly emerging standards and technology, are leading governments across the world to pursue the issuance of more sophisticated machine readable travel documents (MRTDs) to their citizens. Entrust, Inc., a leader in e-passport deployment and innovation, has announced the development of public key infrastructure (PKI) for the next generation of e-passport security, also known as Extended Access Control (EAC).

“Because we already help secure e-passports and national ID cards for governments around the world, it’s only natural that Entrust plays a vital role in the development of this next level of e-passport technology,” said Entrust Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Conner. “As part of a layered security approach, Entrust PKI solutions help increase security, improve efficiency and promote cost-effectiveness to enable a more citizen-centric government.”

EAC provides a higher level of security during the verification process of e-passports. Not based on the X.509 standard, EAC will leverage a new type of certificate established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) known as a card verifiable (CV) certificate. Entrust is actively participating in the technical groups working on the new CV standard, including attending the Brussels Interoperability Group (BIG) meeting this week in Paris, France.

These next-generation e-passports will be required by all member European Union (EU) nations by June 2009. Deployment mandates for the U.S. have yet to be determined.

The initial e-passport generation uses Basic Access Control (BAC), which features passive and optional active authentication, and is in production in many parts of the world. Unmatched in PKI deployment experience, Entrust provides BAC e-passport security for a number of top e-governments in the world, including the U.S., U.K., Slovenia, Singapore and New Zealand.

“The Government of Slovenia began issuing e-passports in August 2006 and is rapidly incorporating EAC into our systems and processes,” said Vladimir Logofetov, Secretary, Information Services Division, Interior Ministry of Slovenia. “We are happy to have the assistance of S&T Slovenija and Entrust in this effort as we increase the security of e-passports for our citizens.”

E-passport travel documents contain an electronic chip – smart card or RFID – that stores information that can be verified against the data on the passport as well as against the individual. Because of the sensitivity of this personal information (e.g., digitized photographs, fingerprints or other biometrics) the security and integrity of e-passports are critical. To protect these assets, PKI is an integral technology for the security and verification infrastructure of e-passports.

Modular and fully integrated, the Entrust Authority PKI portfolio is built on the foundation of Entrust Authority Security Manager, the certification authority (CA) system responsible for issuing and managing users’ digital identities. Optional components help organizations manage the entire lifecycle of PKI certificates. Approximately 1,000 government and commercial organizations have purchased Entrust PKI solutions since Entrust brought the first PKI to market in the 1990s.

If you’d like to experience the benefits of the next-generation e-passports, visit our interactive EAC demonstration at https://www.entrust.com/forms/eac-demo/index.htm.

About Entrust

Entrust secures digital identities and information for consumers, enterprises and governments in 1,650 organizations spanning 60 countries. Leveraging a layered security approach to address growing risks, Entrust solutions help secure the most common digital identity and information protection pain points in an organization. These include SSL, authentication, fraud detection, shared data protection and e-mail security. For information, call 888-690-2424, e-mail entrust@entrust.com or visit http://www.entrust.com.