Ireland’s selfie-friendly passport card wins international security award

Ireland’s new selfie-friendly passport card was a joint winner of the Best Regional ID Document at last month’s High Security Printing Europe Conference in Bucharest, Romania.

The Regional ID of the Year Award is one of only two awards presented at the conference every year, along with the Regional Banknote of the Year Award.

According to a report by Independent.ie, Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan welcomed the win as “a significant and well-deserved peer-acknowledgement”, and said that Ireland is at the cutting edge of technological and security developments in ID documentation.

Ireland’s passport card was introduced last October and allows the user to upload a selfie, or passport compliant photo taken on a mobile phone, which appears on the ID. The card is valid for five years and is good for entry to 30 EU countries, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. 17,500 of the cards have been issued since its launch.

The firms involved in the passport card’s development included DLRS, Absolute Graphics, HID Global Ireland and Purple Pod.

Article Topics

biometric passport  |  biometrics  |  face photo  |  industry award  |  Ireland  |  travel documents