Entrust: Countries failing on e-passport inspection
03 November, 2010
category: Contactless, Government
Entrust Inc. executives say that countries are doing great with the issuance of electronic passports but is falling behind on the inspection of the documents.
“The migration toward e-passport technology is critical, but we’re failing to capitalize on the investment if these documents aren’t properly inspected,” said Entrust President and CEO Bill Conner. “Governments remain diligent in their issuance of e-passports, but until we’re also authenticating the documents at border security checkpoints we’ll fall short of establishing universal trust between countries.”
Conner made the comments at the International Civil Aviation (ICAO) Sixth Symposium in Montreal.
David Mahdi, Entrust’s product marketing manager, expanded on this issue during Entrust’s presentation, “No Issuance without Inspection: The Rise of Electronic Documents & the Importance of Electronic Validation.” Mahdi carefully outlined the need for proper inspection stations and how organizations can deploy the necessary technology.
Highlighting the growth of first- and second-generation e-passport issuance, the presentation provided some of the necessary components required for proper inspection, including implementation, establishing trust links, integrating with public-key directories (PKD), certificate key management, maintenance and more.
For organizations that don’t currently possess the resource or expertise to implement these components in-house, Entrust provides a hosted, PKI-based inspection service that can be integrated with the ICAO PKD and domestic no-fly lists, and is also compliant with ICAO and EU standards.