CONSULARISWorldReach Software Newsletter

Consularis is derived from the Latin word, Consul. It referred to the Roman governors of provinces as far back as 400 A.D.

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INSIDE CONSULARISSpotlight Series Mr. Malcolm Cuthbertson:Evolving Emergency Travel Documents: Moving Beyond The Legacy of The Laissez-Passer

PASSPORTREACH: A Proven Emergency Travel Documents Issuance System

WORLDREACH To Exhibit At ICAO MRTD’s Symposium

Consularis welcomes article submissions from those in the consular world. For more information on how to submit an article or suggest a story idea, please send us an email at: marketing@worldreach.com

EVOLVING EMERGENCY TRAVEL DOCUMENTSMOVING BEYOND THE LEGACY OF THE LAISSEZ-PASSER

In the past, many nations would issue a Laissez-Passer in lieu of an emergency travel document (ETD) acting as a pass to get citizens out of a dan-gerous situation such as a war zone, or to simply allow a traveler safe return home by the quickest means possible. A Laissez-Passer, traditionally allowed the carrier a one way free passage with clearly defined, very specific travel restrictions.

Today, the names and types of ETDs differ notably between nations. A variety of ter-minologies are being used including, but not limited to: emergency passports, emer-gency travel certificates, emergency travel documents, laissez-passers, temporary pass-ports, passports and provisional passports.

To discuss the ETD landscape, Consularis spoke with Mr. Malcolm Cuthbertson, a leading expert in the field of secure travel documents as well as a trusted consultant to De La Rue. Associated with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for more than 20 years, Mr. Cuthbertson’s most recent involvement with this influential organization is in the Implementation

& Capacity Building Working Group (ICBWG). Mr. Cuthbertson, who is also the United Kingdom’s principle Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTD) Expert at the UK International Organization for Standardiza-tion (ISO), has graciously offered to share some of his vast travel document subject matter expertise with the Consularis reader.

A travel document issued in many incarnationsIn our modern world of secure ePassports, if an accident occurs such as a traveler losing their passport many differences still exist in the way nations provide their citizens the ability to safely continue their journey, states Mr. Cuthbertson. Surprisingly, despite all security advances, for some nations, not much has changed since the original days of using a Laissez-Passer.

According to Mr. Cuthbertson, most nations are offering at least one and sometimes more types of ETDs to their citizens. They differ between nations and can be as restrictive as the original Laissez-Passer, or allow a greater degree of travel freedom. In the majority of

SPOTLIGHT SERIES: This issue features Mr. Malcolm Cuthbertson, a member of the ICAO Implementation & Capacity Building Working Group and the ISO Principle UK Expert on MRTD.

There is a need for a new

type of internationally

accepted secure ETD that

can do more than the old

Laissez-Passer’s limited

one way free passage

cases, the time validity of an ETD is limited to within a year. The format can vary from a single handwritten page to a “passport-like” booklet. Many of the ETDs have limited secu-rity features, different issuance procedures and varying validity. As a result of this incon-sistency, an immigration officer will always view such emergency documents with much more suspicion than full validity passports.

Mr. Cuthbertson says that there are two schools of thought regarding the look and feel of ETDs. Some countries are using unusual and eas-ily distinguishable colors such as pink, white, light-blue for the cover material. This serves to alert immigration officers that they are not full validity passports and may have been is-sued in less than optimal issuance conditions. It also encourages the holder to be compelled to exchange them for a full validity passport as soon as possible in order to avoid future added scrutiny from immigration officials. In compar-ison, the prime focus of other countries is to ensure that the ETD is as safe as possible for the traveler, allowing the document to be widely accepted at the majority of border crossings.

An important and growing trendThe sheer volume of ETDs is significant enough to warrant the industry’s attention, says Mr. Cuthbertson, as the combined numbers issued annually could easily top 200,000 documents. This quantity is expected to grow proportionally with the trend towards the centralized printing model for biometric ePassports. The introduc-tion of ePassports is causing challenges for many countries, from a cost and security standpoint, to continue issuing full validity passports across all their diplomatic missions around the world.

The volume and expected growth in the popu-larity of ETDs can, in many cases, be attributed to the simple fact that full validity repatriated passports can take upwards of two weeks to be delivered. This stands in sharp contrast to the pre-biometric era when overseas missions and consulates often could issue full validity pass-ports themselves with little or no delay. As a result of this logistics issue and the continuing

pressure to improve the protection of its citi-zens abroad, there is a need for a new type of internationally accepted secure ETD that can do more than the old Laissez-Passer’s limited one way free passage, states Mr. Cuthbertson.

Most nations globally will accept an ETD as a means to travel through their borders, but some nations are revisiting their accep-tance policies of such documents. As an ex-ample, this summer the US is changing how they accept ETDs under the Visa Waiver Pro-gram (VWP), according to Mr. Cuthbertson.

High security within practical parametersAn ETD should be securely designed within cer-tain practical parameters, explains Mr. Cuthbert-son. Because the personalization of ePassports abroad is seen by many as impractical, all other traditional security features in the document and the issuance process must be strengthened.

As one example, Mr. Cuthbertson explains that stock management must be facilitated by pro-cess and document design. In recent years, a large EU member state experienced a brief pe-riod of acceptance problems for their ETDs due to stock management issues, thus proving the importance of a properly designed issuance sys-tem. He also pointed out that some countries are going as far as installing biometric enabled passport printers in some of their domestic lo-cated airports in an effort to provide their citi-zens with easy-to-access, highly secure ETDs.

Moving forward Mr. Cuthbertson expects that ETDs could be ICAO machine readable pass-port (MRP) compliant with limited time va-lidity and will be visually recognizable as an emergency document to encourage further scrutiny at border crossings. The most likely design is a 6-8 page booklet, as it will also enable the use of visa stickers and stamps.

ICAO may issue guidelinesDiscussions are currently taking place in the ICAO New Technology Working Group to gain international consensus on future ETDs. Mr. Cuthbertson believes ICAO will issue guide-

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EVOLVING EMERGENCY TRAVEL DOCUMENTS [CONTINUED]

A future ETD will be ICAO

MRP compliant

For some nations, not

much has changed since

the original days of using

a Laissez-Passer

Canadian Emergency Passportfor a Single Journey Only

A lost or stolen passport. It’s every traveler’s worst nightmare, that or finding out the person sitting next to you on the plane bought their ticket for a far lower fare. Losing your passport through accidental or malicious means can feel like the literal loss of identity.

After notifying the local authorities of your loss, the next step if you’re abroad, is to find the clos-est embassy or consulate of your home country and get a temporary replacement travel docu-ment. With the use of biometric-enabled pass-ports widespread, the ability to obtain a full validity replacement passport in an urgent man-ner is difficult and costly. Most consulates and embassies are ill-equipped to print biometric passports on-site. Thus the reliance on Emergency Travel Documents (ETD) comes into the forefront.

WorldReach’s PassportReach solu- tion, specially designed for overseas passport issuance, has numerous advantages to handling the request for an ETD. PassportReach offers simultaneous processing with a full validity passport request, uses the same source data as a regular pass port, accommodates machine read able zone (MRZ) and is supported by an inventory management system for blank secure documents (inven- tory visible at consulates, embas- sies and HQ).

Unlike systems designed for in-country passport issuance, systems designed for passport issuance abroad face unique chal-lenges including: processing at up to 250 lo-

cations; operating over a limited communica-tions infrastructure; having no or minimal local IT support resources; and ensuring security at posts with local staff. PassportReach is a pur-pose built commercial off-the-shelf product for this environment with known costs, and delivery timelines.

WorldReach has valuable experience with assist-ing in the processing of travel documents abroad. In 1994, WorldReach began work with Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAIT) to deliver consular and passport services abroad; ranging from full validity MRZ passports (FVP) to ETDs. To date, PassportReach has been used to issue over 1.2 million passports abroad. In 2005, WorldReach as one of the early industry leaders, assisted DFAIT and Passport Canada to implement a program to repatriate FVP printing back to Canada, while providing ETDs to citizens with legitimate immediate travel needs. The sys-tem is currently being used to process approxi-mately 250,000 passport applications per year in Canada covering FVPs (repatriated printing) and ETDs where required (local post printing).

Most recently, WorldReach in collaboration with Logica and De La Rue won a contract from the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to introduce secure and interna-tionally recognised ETDs.

The programme called BRIDGE (BRitish Iden-tity Document Generating Equipment) is a mod-ernization of passport services designed to bet-ter serve British nationals traveling abroad. The new system is based on the PassportReach ap-plication from WorldReach Software, designed to support all aspects of overseas secure document issuance replacing a manual issuing process.

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PASSPORTREACH:A PROVEN EMERGENCY TRAVEL DOCUMENTS ISSUANCE SYSTEM

lines in the form of a 9303 supplement some-time in 2010. At the moment, it is still be-ing discussed whether a working paper should be prepared on the subject for the next ICAO

technical advisory group meeting. If a working paper is prepared, it is likely to recommend that an ICAO standard or a recommended practice should be applied to all ETDs.

WORLDREACH TO EXHIBIT AT ICAO MRTD’s SYMPOSIUM

About WorldReachWorldReach Software offers solutions to extend a government’s reach of assistance across geographic borders and time zones to citizens in need. For more information on any of our solutions, please contact Mark Stoochnoff at mark.stoochnoff@worldreach.com.

Open InvitationWorldReach Software welcomes article submissions from the consular world. For more information on how to submit an article or to suggest a story idea, please send an email to marketing@worldreach.com.

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A Proven Consular PartnerWORLDREACH SOFTWARE1420 Blair PlaceSuite 500Ottawa, ONK1J 9L8 Canada

T:1-613-742-6482F:1-613-742-8188marketing@worldreach.com

www.worldreach.com

WorldReach will be in attendance when the ICAO holds its

annual symposium on MRTDs, Biometrics and Security in

Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from September 21-23. Last

year’s symposium drew over 450 participants from a variety

of countries and disciplines.

According to ICAO, the Symposium is of particular inter-

est to officials of passport and official ID document issuing

agencies, immigration, customs, and other border control

and security authorities. As well as officials from airlines and

airports involved in passenger service systems, handling of

travel documents, facilitation and aviation security should

also participate.

Please feel free to stop by and visit WorldReach’s booth on

the 5th floor - #42

For more information on the symposium, including registra-

tion information and links to the ICAO MRTD site, follow this

link: http://www.icao.int/mrtdsymposium/2009/

an innovative solution for the issuance of passports abroad.