(MENAFN- Bangladesh Monitor) Dhaka : In a bold step towards digitilisation, Bangladesh is all set to enter biometric passport (ePassport) and border control (eGate) age soon.
Major General Md Masud Rezwan, psc, Director General of Depart-ment of Immigra-tion and Passports (DIP) disclosed this to The Bangladesh Moni-tor in a recent exclusive interview.
Delivery of ePassports is scheduled to begin from early 2019 to Bangladesh nationals at home and abroad, Maj Gen Rezwan informed.
Along with introduction of ePassports, DIP is also going to digitalise country's border control. The DG DIP said biometric passport would help introduce the "automated border control management".
All preparations to introduce ePassports from January 2019, are being taken in accordance with the guidelines of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), he said.
Introduction of ePassports in Bangladesh will revolutionise the travel, tourism and millions of expatriates_ especially it will ease their visa and work permit procedure.
Bangladesh government has approved the project to produce 30 million Digital Passports (ePassports) on June 21 at a cost of Tk 4,569 crore.
A German company_ Veridos GmbH is doing the job of installation of equipment, data centre, maintenance, training and 3 million ePassports at a cost of US$398 million.
The DIP will complete implementation of the project titled "Bangladesh ePassport and Formu-lation of Automated Border Control Manage-ment", by June 2028.
MRPs will remain valid alongside ePassports during the period.
Biometric passport
The biometric or digital passport, have embedded electronic microprocessor chips, which contain biometric information used to authenticate the identity of the holders.
The ePassports will contain all information. Biometric signs like holders' eyes and finger-prints, will be preserved in the microchips installed in the e-Passport page. Thus tracking of individuals' movements will become easier.
The digital passport will ensure security of the Bangladesh passport, as the ePassport boasts of 38 security features, including a holographic image embossed in thin film laminate.
The ePassports will change colour under light, Maj Gen Rezwan said and added that the size of ePassport would remain the same as the current Machine Readable Passport (MRP). However, the two pages with the passport holder's details, which now appear in the beginning, would be replaced by a polymer card embedded with a chip containing the passport holder's personal information.
It will usher confidence among 120 countries, which have introduced ePassports, with the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and Malaysia, as well as its acceptability in other countries of the world, said the DG DIP.
Hassle-free travel
The ePassports will not only facilitate the travellers, but will also ease hassle-free entry into 120 countries and also to countries where Bangladesh nationals can avail on arrival visa. The digital facility will further increase out-bound tourism as well, he said.
When a traveller places the ePassport on a scanner at the eGate, it will activiate the facial recognition and read the passport info and only then the gate will open. Next step is reading valid visa manually by immigration. The job of immigration official will reduce to one-third.
While returning the traveller will not be required to wait in the queue at the immigration checkpost. The traveller will need to proceed towards the eGate and automatically will be checked in.
The DG DIP said that there is possibility of forgery and no scope to preserve fingerprints with the current MRP. As a result, taking advantage of a weakness in the system, fake passports can be made.
"MRP are going to become void in many countries because of security reasons. We have to switch to ePassport project to meet international demands," Mej Gen Rezwan said and added that the ePassport is a proven travel device that cannot be forged.
"Holders of these passports would be able to go in and out of an international airport without any hassle at all," he said.
The project
It may be mentioned that, the Ministry of Home Affairs signed an MoU with the German company, Veridos GmbH, regarding ePassports during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's official visit to Germany in Februay 2017.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said in this regard that with the implementation of the ePassport project, the country would move forward another step towards digital progress. "We'll enter the exclusive list of 119 countries that have so far introduced e-passports".
Veridos GmbH will work with the DIP on a government to government (G2G) basis, following recommendations of the Federal Ministry of Finance of Germany.
In this regard, on July 19, 2018 another agreement was signed by DIP Director General Maj Gen Md Masud Rezwan and Veridos GmbH CEO Hans Wolfgang Kunz on behalf of their respective organisations.
The first batch of 2 million ePassports will be bought from Germany, while the rest 28 million will be produced in Bangladesh after the installation of equipment and a data centre.
During the making of the ePassports, demographic information, fingerprints of all ten fingers, retina scans, and digital signature will be collected from applicants, verified and preserved in the central data centre and disaster recovery centre.
Asked about the MRPs that Bangladesh nationals are currently using, Gen Rezwan, said that ePassports would gradually replace MRPs from early next year.
The MRP holders will be able to use it until its validity expires. They will be given ePassports during renewal, he added.
The passport will have 5 and 10 years of validity period based on ages of the passport holder and contain 48 and 64 pages. The fees will vary for validity period and pages.
Under the agreement, a passport booklet factory would be set up in Dhaka's Uttara, where a six-storey printing building of the DIP is being constructed.
Presently, DIP produces an average 18,000 to 19,000 MRP per day. "During the primary phase of negotiation, when I told the officials that we need equipment to produce 25,000 passports daily, they asked, General are you sure 25,000 passports a month not daily! I said daily," quipped Maj Gen Masud Rezwan.
Under the project, the German company will set up the required equipment at all Bangladesh missions abroad and all passport offices across the country.
Automated border control
Under the "Automated Border Control Management" project 50 eGates at immigration check posts at every international airports (Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet), Chittagong seaport and two land ports at Benapole and Banglabandh in the country are going to be set up.
The ePassport production equipment including software, hardware and network will be set up at 72 passport offices in and all the district cities, 80 foreign missions. Apart from these the Special Branch and District SB will have 72 readable equipment, also at other land ports.
The agreement also has a maintenance warranty period of 10 years. The MRP equipment had a warranty period of 5 years, which has expired four years ago.
A new central server would be installed in Dhaka, which will transfer all data from MRP, National Identification Card (NID), fingerprints and other information.
A Data Recovery Centre will also be established at Jessore, where present MRP standby data centre was established.
A training centre for operation, maintenance and service will be established in Uttara to train 1,000 personnels. Another 100 engineers and technicians will be trained in Germany.
It may be noted that Maj General Masud Rezwan who is responsible for the biometric passport and digitalise boarder control project, was also the Project Director of Machine Readable Passport.
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