U.S. Government Printing Office Awards Multi-Year Contract to Gemalto for ePassport Solution

Gemalto announced the second consecutive five-year contract win from the Government Printing Office (GPO) to deliver ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) compliant electronic eCovers and secure pre-personalization services. GPO will supply the complete electronic passport book and related services to The Department of State for issuance to U.S. citizens.

Gemalto has been a primary supplier to GPO since inception of the Electronic Passport, which began deployment in 2005. During this new contract assessment phase, the Gemalto Sealys solution was thoroughly evaluated and confirmed to meet the agency requirements for privacy protection, production yield, durability and communications performance. Since 2005, GPO has produced more than 80 million passports containing secure electronic devices.

“ePassports provide effective, efficient and rapid passage through border control points, addressing two major concerns for the Department of State: ease of use and, above all, security,” said Neville Pattinson, senior vice president, Gemalto North America. “This new contract award reinforces Gemalto’s position as the number one identity solutions provider for the U.S. federal government, securing the identities of U.S. citizens and government employees.”

Gemalto is an experienced global leader for credentials management, from enrollment to issuance and usage in a broad range of governmental and commercial applications, and is delivering its technologies to a large number of ePassport programs around the world. In the U.S., Gemalto has already supplied more than 35 million smartcard-based identity credentials to the federal government and its contractors, from both its Protiva range of IDCore Common Access Cards (CAC) and IDPrime PIV (Personal Identity Verification) cards, as well as its Sealys ePassports.