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Milan, June 25th,
2007
Electronic Passport Forum:
fifth global summit on eID documents revels in outstanding success in Istanbul
Wise Media’s Electronic Passport
Forum and Citizen ID Forum opened its doors in Istanbul
on June 21st in the presence of Turkish Minister of
Labor and Social Security Murat Basesgioglu. The first
edition of the event outside the EU proved to be a great
success with 249 high-profile participants attending
the 2-day conference and exhibition.
Milan, June 25th, 2007 - With the endorsement of
the European Commission, the fifth Electronic Passport Forum took place
last week in Istanbul, hosted for the first time by a non-EU member state.
Once again the event proved to be the platform of choice for experts from
government, border control and law enforcement, as well as technology vendors,
to discuss and learn more about the key issues relating to the introduction of
digital citizen identity credentials.
Murat Basesgioglu, Turkish Minister of
Labor and Social Security, opened the event by discussing
the technology shift that the Turkish government has
spearheaded since 2003, aimed at providing citizens
with access to a variety of eGovernment services in
the fields of customs, social security, education and
justice. The Minister also announced the beginning of
the electronic ID and social security card project in
pilot areas as of July 2007.
“This year we expanded the scope of the
discussions from travel documents and border control
to include national ID programs and eGovernment,” said
Sophie B. de la Giroday, President of Wise Media. “In
Istanbul we launched the Citizen ID Forum, the initiative
that addresses the second wave of the revolution represented
by the digitalization of citizen ID documents. The Citizen
ID Forum highlights how the objectives that governments
strive to meet via the digitalization of ID documents
go far beyond homeland security. They are much more
related to creating a means of delivering better services
to both national and non-national residents.”
Carlos Goncalves, Deputy Director, Aliens
and Borders Services (SEF) with the Portuguese Ministry
of the Interior commented: “Now that electronic passport
projects have gone live in so many countries, we can
finally expect to see the real impact of the transition
to machine readable travel documents. As the new automated
border control and passenger screening infrastructure
based on ePassports is put in place, travelers will
see enhanced service levels at airports and shorter
queues, while airports and airlines will be able to
reduce the costs related to security procedures by reducing
human resources.”
Ali M. Al Khouri, Assistant Director
General for Central Operations with the United Arab
Emirates Identity Authority commented: “Effective identity
management in the context of national ID programs is
a tool to fight against the growing tide of identity
theft - a significant threat to both homeland security
and the personal and financial security of citizens.
Another strategic goal of ID management schemes is to
provide of a range of services not only to citizens,
but also to entities such as banks, hospitals and government
ministries.”
The Electronic Passport Forum and Citizen
ID Forum welcomed an array of world-class panelists
to review the status of the progressive digitalization
of Passports, as well as National IDs, Driver’s Licenses,
Health Cards, Visas and Green Cards worldwide. These
included representatives of Malaysian National Registration
Department, the Belgian Ministry of the Interior, US
Department of Homeland Security the Dutch Ministry of
Justice, Frontex, the Estonian National Certification
Authority the German BSI Federal Office for Information
Security, the Polish Ministry of Interior, the Belgian
FEDICT Public Federal Service, the French Ministry for
Foreign Affairs, UK Border & Immigration Agency and
the Italian Ministry of the Interior.
The Electronic Passport Forum and Citizen
ID Forum were sponsored by Thales, 3M, vps ID Systeme
and Infineon Technologies AG.
The valuable discussions that took place
in Istanbul will continue at the Electronic Passport
Forum conference at the ID WORLD International Congress,
the annual world summit on automatic identification,
in Milan on November 26-28, 2007.
For further
information please contact:
Please
contact: epassport@wisemedia.com
Wise
Media SpA
Via R. Lepetit, 4 - 20124 Milan -
Italy
Phone +39 02 8903 4112-
Fax +39 02 6738 8322 |
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