07.02.15
Bundesdruckerei has won the contract to design and operate the ICAO Public Key Directory (PKD) Service of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialized agency of the United Nations.
“Through our German trust service provider D-TRUST, we can offer an infrastructure made in Germany that offers high security and high availability and fully meets the customer’s requirements,” said Ulrich Hamann, CEO of Bundesdruckerei.
At borders in many countries around the world, control officers use special reading devices to check whether the electronic passports presented are genuine, forged or manipulated.
Checks like these are also carried out by electronic gates, so-called eGates, which are becoming a familiar sight at many airports. Every chip in an electronic passport has its own unique signature that warrants authenticity and integrity. When checks are carried out at eGates, the signature on the chip of the passport is verified with the certificate of the country that issued the passport. These signature certificates and the pertinent revocation lists are made available in the PKD, which ICAO operates from its headquarters in Montreal in Canada.
There are currently 45 countries taking part in this system. Each country can update its signature certificates and revocation lists so that the signature certificates do not have to be exchanged bilaterally with each individual country. Instead, the latest versions can be retrieved from the ICAO PKD and imported into the respective country’s border control solutions.
“Through our German trust service provider D-TRUST, we can offer an infrastructure made in Germany that offers high security and high availability and fully meets the customer’s requirements,” said Ulrich Hamann, CEO of Bundesdruckerei.
At borders in many countries around the world, control officers use special reading devices to check whether the electronic passports presented are genuine, forged or manipulated.
Checks like these are also carried out by electronic gates, so-called eGates, which are becoming a familiar sight at many airports. Every chip in an electronic passport has its own unique signature that warrants authenticity and integrity. When checks are carried out at eGates, the signature on the chip of the passport is verified with the certificate of the country that issued the passport. These signature certificates and the pertinent revocation lists are made available in the PKD, which ICAO operates from its headquarters in Montreal in Canada.
There are currently 45 countries taking part in this system. Each country can update its signature certificates and revocation lists so that the signature certificates do not have to be exchanged bilaterally with each individual country. Instead, the latest versions can be retrieved from the ICAO PKD and imported into the respective country’s border control solutions.