EDAPS IMPRESSES INTERPOL!

01.01.2009

INTERPOL signed a memorandum of understanding with the EDAPS Consortium to design e-passport prototype for the Organization. The ceremony took place after the INTERPOL’s delegation was convinced of the technological capacity of Ukrainian enterprises

In January 2009 a delegation from the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) paid a historic visit to Ukraine. This is how Mr. Ronald K. Noble, INTERPOL Secretary General named it.

The visit became historic primarily because INTERPOL decided to place an order with the EDAPS Consortium for the design of an e-passport for officers of the Organization. The new document will contain the most state-of-the-art security elements.

A document of this type, which is to be designed for INTERPOL for the first time, will be manufactured with the application of the newest technologies and security elements: a polycarbonate data page, laser engraving, laser perforation, holographic, micrographic and optical security elements, water marks and an electronic microchip.

For this purpose INTERPOL’s delegation visited the EDAPS Consortium on January 19. Apart from Mr. Ronald K. Noble the delegation also included Ms. Elaine Dezenski, Managing Director of INTERPOL’s Global Security Initiative, and Ms. Ivanka Spadina, Project Manager of Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database of INTERPOL.

Mr. Alexander Vassiliev is demonstrating to the pressmen the memorandum on design and production of INTERPOL e-passport. On behalf of INTERPOL the memorandum was signed by Ms. Elaine Dezenski (right)

The Ukrainian receiving party was represented by Mr. Vasily Gritsak, People’s Deputy, and Mr. Alexander Vassiliev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the EDAPS Consortium.

The decision to visit the Consortium was made after a series of presentations of the EDAPS Consortium on December 9-10, 2008, which took place in the INTERPOL’s Headquarters in Lyon (France). The Consortium presented the most state-of-the-art technologies and systemic solutions aimed at fighting forgery in the field of excise stamps manufacture, protection of identification documents and e-passports (also see pp. 6-7).

During the January visit the INTERPOL’s delegation saw Consortium enterprises: Specialized Enterprise HOLOGRAPHY (manufacture of holograms and holographic security elements) and ZNAK Ltd. (manufacture of plastic cards and documents blanks in the form of polycarbonate pages). The delegation also visited STATE CENTER for DOCUMENTS PERSONALIZATION (State Enterprise of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine) where citizens’ personal data is submitted to the new Ukrainian travel passport and other state documents.

On-the-spot visit to ZNAK Ltd. In the first photo: Mr. Alexander Vassiliev (left) and Mr. Igor Popovich, Director General of ZNAK Ltd. (right) are demonstrating to Mr. Ronald Noble (centre) one of the stages of plastic cards’ production

HIGH-TECH THEORY

Before demonstrating EDAPS production lines its representatives conducted an electronic presentation of the idea for the design of INTERPOL e-passport. In other words, the Consortium is technically prepared for the further demonstration of EDAPS security technologies.

The presentation was led by Mr. Alexander Vassiliev. He was assisted by Ms. Natalia Kochubey, Vice President of the EDAPS Consortium for International Relations, Mr. Georgy Beilin, member of the Board of Directors of the EDAPS Consortium, Technical Director of the Specialized Enterprise HOLOGRAPHY, and Mr. Andrey Pervushin, member of the Board of Directors of the EDAPS Consortium, Director General of KP VTI JSC. Mr. Vasily Gritsak also attended the presentation.

According to what they had seen, INTERPOL’s representatives highly appraised the offered idea of the e-passport. They also expressed the opinion that the new document could become a model for the application of security technologies by all world countries in their documents.

SECRET OF HOLOGRAPHY PROTECTION

Upon completion of the presentation, visitors from Lyon were offered an on-the-spot visit to the Consortium enterprises. Mr. Andrey Timoshenko, Technical Director of the Specialized Enterprise HOLOGRAPHY met the delegates at the enterprise. After making a brief outline of the history of the enterprise’s establishment and development, he showed the guests around all production premises.

Mr. Timoshenko interestingly described every stage of the manufacture of holographic security elements, stressing also on various specific features of this innovative production.

Mr. Ronald Noble gave a warm greeting to all the employees of HOLOGRAPHY. He was definitely in high spirits, often joked, had lively conversations with the personnel, presented them with INTERPOL memorable badges and made enquiries about their working experience.

It is necessary to point out that all the employees of the enterprise gave professional answers to guests’ questions because the majority of them have a unique experience in this field of manufacture of holographic security elements.

The guests were particularly interested in control stamps for protecting licensed audio and video products.

During the excursion Mr. Timoshenko gave a talk on technologies of recording different types of holograms – 2D, 3D, dot-matrix and demetallized holograms. He helped guests to trace the whole history of development of the hologram: from design to implementation and circulation manufacture at a production scale.

Demetallized holograms will be used as one of the most secure protective elements for production of INTERPOL e-passport.

The guests were surprised that the process of hologram recording may last a few minutes, but the preparation for the recording may take four hours. Mr. Timoshenko explained how to launch the mass production of a definite holographic image, and spoke about its transfer from one surface to another.

The visitors highly appraised the Consortium development of a device for verifying the authenticity of holographic security elements which are applied for the manufacture of new excise stamps for alcohol and tobacco products introduced in summer 2008 (for the effect of their implementation see pp. 46-50).

The delegates were particularly impressed by artistic holograms of golden Scythian decorations, namely by the gem of golden treasury of Ukraine – Kyiv Pectoral (neck decoration of the Scythian king from the 4th century BC).

QUALITY AND STABILITY OF ZNAK

After the Specialized Enterprise HOLOGRAPHY the delegation visited ZNAK Ltd. where they were met by Mr. Igor Popovich, Director General. ZNAK Ltd. is one of the leading European manufacturers of plastic cards and documents blanks which celebrated its 5th anniversary in March 2009. ZNAK manufactures ultramodern polycarbonate pages which are stitched into new Ukrainian travel passports for the further submittal of personal data on them by means of laser engraving and perforation. These technologies are offered for the manufacture of INTERPOL e-passport.

Mr. Popovich arranged the excursion in such a way that the guests might see the security level of the enterprise and complete stability of accounting systems. Director General of ZNAK Ltd. drew the attention of the guests to the modern multilevel system of access of employees to various enterprise premises. "The full control over technological processes and expendable materials of the manufacture is achieved through identification cards of employees. Any person in the territory of the enterprise can be stopped and checked at any time. Besides, practically everywhere around the enterprise premises there are video cameras which can record even during the dark part of the day. This secures unequalled protection of products manufactured by ZNAK", said Mr. Popovich.

Mr. Igor Popovich described a technological process of plastic cards and document blanks manufacture. He stressed on unrivaled qualities of polycarbonate which is several times harder than some metals.

The visitors highly appraised the production quality control system developed by ZNAK, which is based on the constant thorough verification of the outcome of each production stage.

Mr. Ronald Noble highly appraised EDAPS development of a device for verifying authenticity of holographic security elements used for manufacture of new excise stamps for alcohol and tobacco products introduced in summer 2008

HISTORIC MEMORANDUM

At a press-conference which took place after the excursions around enterprises Ms. Elaine Dezenski accompanied by Mr. Ronald Noble signed a memorandum with Mr. Alexander Vassiliev on design and production of INTERPOL e-passport prototype.

EDAPS representatives informed that the prototype would be presented to the INTERPOL’s Executive Committee and heads of National Central Bureaus of INTERPOL for endorsement. Mr. Ronald Noble assured that this would take place in March 2009 and he kept his word (more about the presentation on pp. 29-31). "We are proud of the opportunity to design the document prototype for the largest law-enforcement organization in Europe", said Mr. Alexander Vassiliev in his interview. "The cooperation between INTERPOL and the EDAPS Consortium proves great potential for collaboration between state and corporate sector, and we hope that it is just the beginning of close cooperation under support from INTERPOL and its leading role in the global law-enforcement community".

"The EDAPS Consortium proved to be one of the leaders of the global protected printing industry. The signing of the memorandum is only the first step of the partnership with INTERPOL, which will be extended. The subject for partnership will be not only identification documents manufacture and implementation of the most sophisticated innovations in the field of protection of documents and the process of their issue, but also assistance in securing control over contraband and illegal circulation of falsified products. The Consortium is recognized as one of the leaders of fighting contraband. In 2008 we facilitated the production of highly protected holographic security elements for excise stamps, owing to which a record number of them was produced in Ukraine and this greatly replenished the state budget of Ukraine. We plan to launch this practice on the international level with the assistance of INTERPOL", added Mr. Alexander Vassiliev.

The necessity to implement the newest technologies in the sphere of documents and goods protection comes from the fact that terrorists massively use stolen identification documents and counterfeit them.

Informative lecture delivered by Mr. Andrey Timoshenko, Technical Director of the Specialized Enterprise HOLOGRAPHY (centre) on recording technologies of different holograms allowed INTERPOL specialists, in particular Mr. Ronald Noble (right) to observe the whole production process: from design to manufacture at a production scale

According to Mr. Ronald Noble, INTERPOL’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database lists about 16 mln passports of citizens from different countries. With this number of lost documents it is important to think of passports protection against forgery. If such documents were impossible to counterfeit, they would become useless and, therefore, would not be misused. It turns out that INTERPOL also suffers from counterfeit. Therefore, there appeared necessity to design a highly-protected e-passport for the Organization.

"A lot of people pretend to be INTERPOL officers now. We faced with these facts many times. The passport which EDAPS is to design for INTERPOL will be impossible to counterfeit. INTERPOL officers often go to places of terroristic acts and with the help of the new document it will be easy to track them down in any part of the world", informed Mr. Ronald Noble.

In fact, the new document can become a model for the application of protective technologies by all countries of the world in their documents.

Mr. Noble explained, "INTERPOL has 187 member countries and we try to help them all with fighting crime. Our search for the best company in the world which could help develop a passport for INTERPOL resulted in the partnership with the EDAPS Consortium. We hope that as a result of this partnership each INTERPOL’s officer will have a highly protected passport which is to be designed by EDAPS and they will be able to demonstrate state-of-the-art technologies of protection against counterfeit which can be applied in identification documents. We intend to work with EDAPS and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in order to inform our member states about important security systems which they should apply in their passports based on the prototype developed by EDAPS".

It is known that in 2002 INTERPOL launched its own Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database to fight international terrorism more effectively. Ms. Elaine Dezenski pointed out that "it is the only database of this type in the world. Many countries around the world supply it with information: passports, identification cards and other documents. Now many countries use this database at their borders when checking people’s travel documents. For example, an automated system which quickly verifies data of arriving passengers with INTERPOL’s database operates in all arrival points of the United States. We take pride in this tool which helps our member countries around the world".

As a part of this program INTERPOL’s representatives hope that partnership with EDAPS will help to broaden opportunities of this Organization for fighting forgery in the world. One of the chief tasks of this cooperation is to instruct INTERPOL member countries about the understanding of how to manufacture the most protected documents. "We think that here, in Ukraine, we found a good example", says Ms. Elaine Dezenski.

Mr. Alexander Vassiliev also added that "adhering to the principles of a business approach, the EDAPS Consortium supports socially significant projects which facilitate contribution to the development of a more secure world. Global Security Initiative outlined by INTERPOL for the XXI century is a basic universal strategy on providing goal-oriented continuous cooperation between governments, international organizations and a corporate sector".

Mr. Vasily Gritsak, People’s Deputy also attended e-passport presentation

The matter is that INTERPOL constantly fights document forgery with the help of only one database. As we said before, it contains information of over 16 mln lost passports. Terrorists and organized crime successfully counterfeit these documents moving from one country to another. Mr. Ronald Noble explains that there are two reasons for this. Firstly, not all countries provide information on lost or stolen passport for INTERPOL’s database. Secondly, passports of many countries are easy to forge, which cannot be said about the new travel document of Ukraine.

Mr. Noble said that the new passport which is issued for Ukrainian citizens now is a worthy example to follow. He also said, "This document is really impressive. I am not a Ukrainian citizen, but if I were, I would be proud of having such a passport. That is why I think that the more countries are familiar of this kind of passport, the less passports will be stolen. Even if such document as a Ukrainian passport were stolen, it would still be impossible to counterfeit it".

Our Product wrote previously that the new Ukrainian passport and EDAPS developments in the field of e-documents protection received high acclaim of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), OSCE and the European Commission (see Issue 4/2008, pp. 21-26).

In the summer of 2008, the EDAPS Consortium (Ukraine) entered the global Top-50 companies pursuing technologies of the e-passports implementation, according to ID World rating (see Our Product, Issue 3/2008, pp. 12-15).

The EDAPS Consortium demonstrated technologies of electronic (biometric) passport manufacture many times. However, the legal base for the implementation of e-passports in Ukraine hasn’t been adopted yet. Mr. Ronald Noble said in this respect, "It is clear that global tendencies are directed at implementing biometric documents. Implementation of e-passports in Ukraine will facilitate European integration of Ukrainian citizens. The system worked out by EDAPS is completely ready for the biometric passports manufacture. However, the legal base is still very important" (for the interview with Mr. Noble about the meeting see pp. 8-13).

Text: Arnold Savin
Photo: Dmitry Korablyov