Printing of biometric passports requires development of biometric information collection infrastructure

Printing of biometric passports requires the development of infrastructure for collecting the information that will be put on the passports, the head of security and visual communications at 3M company, which produces materials and equipment for production of biometric passports, Andriy Yudin, has told Interfax-Ukraine.

He said that the information is not collected by the enterprise that will print the biometric passports.

"The producer only prints pages in which data will be wired in. The data has to be collected at the place where people submit documents to receive passports. Ukraine has to create a network for collecting biometric data, for example, in the Foreigner Regional Registration Offices and passport departments," he said.

Yudin added that first of all institutions which will collect biometric information are to have special equipment to collect such data.

"These institutions are to have equipment for collecting the data which will be wired in the biometric page, for example, for finger prints, eye retina scanning, etc. People should not have to go to another region to receive passports with a biometric page. I think that the information collection points should be at least in each regional center and large district centers. Data received in the information collection points are processed and go to the central database and then they will go to the production facilities where the biometric passport will be printed. It is not enough that only passport producer has equipment," he said.

Yudin said that the main thing for the realization of the project is high-quality and quick collection of information and retaining confidentiality.

"Information should be processed and transferred quickly and safely. It is obvious that the state should determin who will keep the information, and a state agency should be involved in this," he said.

Yudin said that for the successful realization of the project on the issue of biometric passports a network of devices for scanning information from the passports issued.

"Biometric passports should be easy to scan, for example, at a border checkpoint, bank or any other institution where the passport could be required. It is important that the equipment can scan not only biometric passports of Ukrainian citizens, but also citizens of other countries," he said.

"Ukraine does not have infrastructure for collecting biometric data to print biometric passports. We could help creating the infrastructure, starting from the collection of biometric information at the passport departments, transfer it to the database and then to production facilities and ending with equipment for scanning information from biometric passports issued," he said.

Yudin said that the total cost of the realization of the project is hard to define.

"There are many nuances in the project, starting from what information is to be put into biometric passports and ending what organizations and institutions will receive equipment for scanning information from passports. In addition, it should be defined if citizens will fully pay for the production of the passports or some funds will be compensated from the national budget. In any way, modern technologies allow making it so that its cost is not high," he said.