Toppan adds to award collection for new color laser ID printing technology

The Best New Passport of 2026 is Argentina’s ePassport, according to High Security Printing. The recognition follows the HSP Award for Best New Technology 2026, which Toppan Security won earlier this year for its Chroma ID printing technology, which is also used in Argentina’s ePassport.

Toppan Security shared the credit for the Best New Passport award at High Security Printing Latin America with its local partner Ipesa in a recent LinkedIn post, and hailed the new passport as part of “a full transformation of Argentina’s national identity infrastructure.”

Chroma is a new laser engraving technology that the company says eliminates the traditional trade-off between photo-realistic color and high resolution in portrait images, launched in late-2025. Toppan notes on its website that 90 percent of the passports currently in use still have black and white facial photos.

The result of bringing full color directly to polycarbonate identity documents with Chroma is that they are fully ICAO-compliant and suitable for airport face biometrics checks, but also give border control officials a more detailed portrait image for visual comparisons.

Argentina selected HID to design and print its new passports in 2018, and Toppan acquired HID in 2024. National identity authority RENAPER announced the redesigned passports in January of 2026.

“A key engineering change is the introduction of polycarbonate as the datapage substrate, bringing the passport in line with contemporary international practice for high assurance ePassports,” HSP says in its announcement. The write-up notes the enhanced security features of Argentina’s passport, including optically variable features and layered resistance to photo substitution through the use of multiple images.

The earlier award was specifically for Chroma, which according to HSP can reproduce up to 16.7 million colors and includes a “characteristic micro-line structure visible under 15× magnification adds a forensic control.”

“CHROMA is a pure colour laser process that forms lifelike, high-definition images inside the polycarbonate structure, producing sharp, photo-realistic portraits with accurate skin tones and smooth tonal gradients without surface printing or added inks,” HSP says.

Toppan was among digital ID technology providers advocating for decentralized identity systems at ID4Africa’s AGM this year.

Article Topics

biometric data quality  |  biometric passport  |  identity document  |  Toppan Security