The Slovakian government has installed the Datacard MX6000 card issuing products and the Datacard Syntera customisation suite software for its national eIDs, driver’s licenses, border crossing cards, vehicle registration cards and resident permits.
The government issues about 520,000 cards annually. Working with Hewlett Packard in Slovakia – who is the primary contract holder on this project – Datacard Group was able to propose a product configuration that meets the Slovakian government specifications for enhanced security features, as well as the criteria for speed and improved quality.
Upgrading to the new MX6000 systems, as well as installing the Syntera software gives, according to the manufacturers, accountability in the issuance process, more secure laser engraving, smart card personalisation and vision verification. The makers say this has expedited the recording of expired or confiscated identity documents. They also improve efficiency with automatic registration of returned cards.
Russell St. John, senior vice president of global marketing for Datacard Group, says: “The Slovakian Ministry of Interior has been a dedicated customer of Datacard Group since 2006, and the new system we proposed was an upgrade from previous Datacard high-volume solutions that they already had in place. The new e-national IDs, driver’s licenses and other documents are now measurably more secure and offer greater functionality.”
While the MX6000s are now used for the primary issuance of all national eID cards, the products also offer optical character recognition (OCR) that can automate the process of recording when expired or invalid documents are returned for destruction. The Slovakian government has also been using the Datacard PB6500 passport issuing products since 2008 for personalisation and issuance of its e-passports.
