As part of its major project to modernize the country's security infrastructure, the Government of the Republic of Fiji decided to evolve its next generation of passports to ePassports. The current passport is a machine-readable document with paper data page, without chip and without digital photo, signature and fingerprints – a fact which has increased concerns regarding the document's security and integrity.With the experience of numerous, successfully realized projects in the past decades, Mühlbauer was selected to trustfully handle and implement a customized, up-to-date, high-secure solution for the personalization and issuance of state-of-the-art ePassports.The Project ScopeThe project comprises the specification, customization, delivery and installation of the necessary IT and security infrastructure (hard- and software) for the personalization (printing) and issuance of four types of ePassports (Ordinary ePassport, Official ePassport, Emergency ePassport & Diplomatic ePassport).Furthermore, Mühlbauer provided services such as consulting, and comprehensive know-how transfer by conducting valuable trainings for the local staff of the Fijian Department of Immigration (DOI). The company renders production support, service and maintenance as well. The project's key cornerstones were the effective change management and accompanying system ramp-up support. Furthermore, Mühlbauer integrated the existing infrastructure of the Republic of Fiji's Border Management System (BMS) into the new ePassport system. This sophisticated consolidation of both systems generates excellent synergies and subsequently increases the security in a very efficient manner.Successful Implementation of Mühlbauer SystemsMühlbauer delivered the first ePassports in a record time of only 12 weeks upon design release. After the successful factory acceptance test (FAT) at the Mühlbauer headquarters in Germany at the end of July 2019, integration tests were conducted and the equipment was shipped to the Republic of Fiji, where the installation at the customer's site took place and the solution was successfully put into operation in the beginning of September 2019.All in all, this marks an ideal starting point for the future issuance of modern and secure ePassports.
Mühlbauer implements passport solution for Fiji
