Infineon Ships Security Chips to Taiwan’s Electronic Passport Program

Taiwan has been issuing one million electronic passports (ePassports) per year to its approximately 23 million citizens since 2008. The passports have a validity of ten years and comply with latest ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) standards for travel documents.

This is the second major project driven by the government of Taiwan that relies on security chips from Infineon: more than 25 million pieces have already been shipped for the electronic health cards of the Taiwan Health Care Project.

The new contract for the ePassport program in Taiwan is further proof of the fact that Infineon's security chips with ”Integrity Guard” technology are the preferred solution for electronic passports and IDs. They fulfill highest requirements with regards to data security of electronic identification documents and are thus an anchor of trust for authorities and citizens worldwide, says Carsten Loschinsky, Vice President and Head of Business Line Government ID for the Chip Card & Security Division of Infineon Technologies.

ID cards, passports, health cards and driving licenses increasingly are being issued in the form of electronic documents, comprising a security chip, in order to protect them more effectively against counterfeiting and falsification while increasing convenience for the ID holder. The personal data is stored and processed by security chips integrated into the smart cards and electronic documents. Infineon supplies security chips for the electronic passports of the largest countries in the world including USA, Brazil, China and India. Furthermore, 90 per cent of all European national eID projects utilize Infineon’s security chips, including Germany where Infineon also supplies the electronic health card project.

Electronic passports and IDs with a long period of validity require particularly high protection of personal data against falsification. Unlike conventional analog security concepts, the digital approach of Infineon’s “Integrity Guard” offers particularly solid protection against unauthorized data manipulation. ”Integrity Guard” is the first technology of its kind to combine two processing units with fully encrypted data processing. The personal data of the card holder are not only stored but also processed in encrypted form. The processors also continuously cross-check each other's operations. Should a unit detect that an operation has not been properly executed, for example if somebody tries to manipulate the data, the ongoing processes are immediately stopped.

Infineon exhibits its extensive portfolio of security chips for electronic identification documents at the SDW Conference in London, May 21-23, 2013.