The new laissez-passer issued by the European Union

Based on an amended legal background, the laissez-passer issued by the European Union experienced a giant leap from a hand written document to an electronically enabled travel document meeting the latest security standards.

At the end of May 2015 the contract was signed with Österreichische Staatsdruckerei GmbH (OeSD) from Austria, who submitted the best offer in terms of quality, compliance with data protection requirements, security and price. OeSD now serves as the prime contractor for nine years producing highly secure booklets and personalising these in its premises in Vienna. OeSD teamed up with Vision-Box from Portugal for the enrolment part and with X-Infotech from Latvia for the life cycle management. The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy provided the PKI, the whole issuance architecture remaining under the management of the European Commission on behalf of all the European Institutions.

After only six months, the new laissez-passer issued by the European Union went live and was and is being issued to its eligible staff members and Members meeting the ICAO deadline for machine readable travel documents of November 24, 2015.

The laissez-passer issuing concept is the result of an elaborate security strategy involving three cities (Brussels, Luxembourg, Frankfurt), the booklet itself is protected on many levels.

More information including an introductive video can be found at www.laissez-passer.eu