New Document Issues

In this round up of recent new secure document issues, we record the new Swiss passport and ID card and the Slovak ID card.

If you would like the issuance of a new ID or secure document to be placed on record in ID & Secure Document News™, please contact francis@recon-intl.com.

Swiss Passport and ID Card

The new Swiss Passport, launched at the end of October 2022, was designed by Geneva-based creative agency Retinaa SA, and is inspired by rural Swiss scenes.

According to a spokesperson from Switzerland’s Federal Office of Police (Fedpol), the designs ‘invite you on a virtual journey through Switzerland’s 26 cantons, from the Alpine peaks down to the valleys.’ Unlike its predecessors, this passport will include ‘a page dedicated to The Fifth Switzerland’. This refers to the community of Swiss nationals living abroad.

In the YouTube video ¹ that accompanies the release of the document, security elements such as UV light symbols (0:15), an element printed with Optically Variable Ink (OVI) (0:25) and a watermark representing a quartz crystal (0:55) can be seen.

Like the new passport, the Swiss identity card has also been updated with the latest security technologies. For the first time, the identity card together with the new passport forms a family of identity documents with a uniform design. The themes of mountains and water are also present throughout.

Swiss ID card under normal (top) and UV (bottom) illumination (© Fedpol).

Swiss nationals are entitled to both a passport and an identity card. For more information visit www.fedpol.admin.ch/fedpol/de/home/pass---identitaetskarte/pass.html.

Slovak ID Card

The Ministry of the Interior started issuing the new biometric identity cards with a contactless chip from 1 December 2022. The prints of two fingers and a facial image are now recorded in the electronic chip of the ID card, in the form of encoded biometric data.

Fingerprints will be deleted from the information systems of the Ministry of the Interior when the document is issued to the holder, as the European regulation on strengthening the security of documents in connection with the issuance of documents does not allow the creation of a database of fingerprints. The ID can only be obtained in person, at any government document issuing department.

Slovak ID card ©Slovak Ministry of the Interior.

The chip on which biometric data is stored is dual, so unlike the chip on previous versions of the card it can be used with a dedicated reader and contactless with a mobile reading device’s NFC functionality. The chip also allows you to view and check biometric and other data written in it, using open access apps.

Older versions of the ID card can be used until the end of their validity period.

1 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeHnmA8NVmI&t=16s