Entrust Datacard’s Card Personalization System Used in the Production of the Irish Passport Card

New Passport Card Allows Irish Citizens to Travel within 28 Countries without Passport Booklet

MINNEAPOLIS—(Jan. 19, 2016)—Entrust Datacard today announced that the Datacard® MX6000™ Card Issuance System is being used to provide the LaserTact™ Security Feature for the Ireland Passport Card. Entrust Datacard has partnered with DLRS Group Security Concepts of Ireland to help facilitate the issuance of the first ever passport card for the country of Ireland. Passport card holders have the ability travel within the EU, EEA and Switzerland by land, sea or air.

In October 2015 Ireland began issuing passport cards to citizens in a move to make it easier for citizens to travel with a convenient card for border control in Europe. With no national ID card program, citizens were required to carry their passport booklet with them for identification purposes while traveling in Europe. Citizens indicated that they did not like carrying the bulky book with them at all times and lost booklets were expensive to replace. To apply for the passport card, citizens must currently carry a valid passport booklet and be over the age of 18. The Ireland Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is using the Datacard MX6000 card issuance system with the LaserTact™ Security Feature which raises the surface of the passport number on the passport card to create a tactile element.

"At Entrust Datacard, we pride ourselves on providing unique security laser engraved features to help governments and their citizens with secure identity solutions," said David Belchick, vice president of vertical marketing at Entrust Datacard. "The Ireland Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade can now provide their citizens with an identity solution that enables the document to have a tactile feature that can quickly and easily be authenticated but not easily reproduced."

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