ID Industry Recognises the Best ID Documents in EMEA

Special awards have been made to a number of newly introduced ID documents that have demonstrated outstanding technical sophistication and excellence in design and security.

The prestigious Regional Banknote and ID Document of the Year Awards form part of the industry’s High Security Printing (HSP) EMEA conference. After an absence of more than two years, the event was held in Tallinn, Estonia (13-15 June).

The Regional ID Document awards recognise outstanding achievement and technical sophistication of a personal identification or travel document programme. The awards are designed to promote the best in system infrastructure and implementation of a government passport, identity or other secure identification scheme.

There are three categories in the ID section – for Best New Passport, Best New National ID Card and Best New ID or Travel Document. Uganda, Lithuania, Morocco and Belgium were the winners this year.

Best New Passport

The winner in this category was the new Belgian ePassport.

ID & Secure Document News™ has followed the development of this winning nomination since the announcement of the renewal of the ePassport contract in 2020.

After the presentation on best practice given at the HSP EMEA conference in Lisbon in 2020 – just before travel restrictions started across the world – there was some anticipation as to what would come out of the two main concepts for the new ePassport – to combine an original typically national design with enhanced security.

With the launch of the new passport and travel documents for non-nationals in February of this year the wait was over.

The use of comic strips, also known as the 9th Art, combined with the enhanced security features has resulted in what can only be described as an audacious design of a highly secure document.

The passport and the travel document share the same design and security features, so the HSP award was made to the Zetes-Thales consortium and the Belgian Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs department.

Belgian ePassport. Belgian Federal Service Foreign Affairs.

Best New National ID Card

The quality of entries for the Best New National ID Card were sufficiently high to merit two awards being made.

The first award in this category went to IDEMIA and the General Directorate of National Security for the new Morocco national eID card, which is the foundation of the country’s new national digital ID platform launched in April this year.

Made from polycarbonate, the eID card has a main colour portrait engraved using state-of-the art LASINK™ technology and contains a secondary 3D portrait that is easy to authenticate and has tactile relief for enhanced security. The card also includes a hologram of the map of the country which changes colour when the card is rotated at a 90° angle thanks to the use of Optical Variable Ink with dynamic colours.

Moroccan eID Card. General Directorate of National Security for Morocco.

The second award went to the Service of Technological Security of State Documents under the Ministry of Finance for the new Lithuanian eID card.

What made the card stand out was not only the elegant design, which combines traditional national symbols with modern security features, but also the multi-colour image of a famous historic castle when viewed under UV light.

The polycarbonate-based eID card is secured by KINEGRAM ZERO.ZERO Combi elements that provide changing colours when viewed at different angles, and varying degrees of metallisation.

The card also makes increased use of special embossing and engraving techniques.

Lithuanian eID Card. Service of Technological Security of State Documents Lithuania.

Best New ID or Travel Document

The winning entry in this category – the new Ugandan driving licence – is the product of close cooperation between the suppliers (Veridos and USPC) and the Ministry of Works and Transport of Uganda, and has resulted in a solution that is user-friendly for both licence holders and law enforcers.

It eliminates uncertainties about the document being original, still valid and without endorsements. In turn it helps to reduce the number of unqualified drivers causing deaths on the roads.

The new system has drastically cut the waiting time for a new licence. Authentication is done using biometrics and scanning of licence numbers and renewal alerts are sent to drivers well ahead of their licence expiry date.

Ugandan Driving Licence. Ministry of Works and Transport of Uganda.

The awards were announced at a special ceremony during the HSP EMEA conference dinner on 14 June by Francis Tuffy, Editor of ID & Secure Document News™.