Luxembourg officially introduced its new biometric passport on Monday, equipped with stronger security features and an extended validity period of 10 years.
The country is extending the validity of the document from five to 10 years to ease the strain on public administration and diplomatic offices, which have been dealing with a large number of extension requests. Luxembourg issues between 50,000 and 60,000 new passports each year, with nearly 40 percent requiring express procedure.
The high demand has been driven by more frequent international travel: Currently, around a third of Luxembourgers, some 157,000 citizens, live abroad. Requests for new passports are also being made by naturalized citizens: Foreign workers make up to 74 percent of the country’s workforce.
The new passports also come with the latest security features, including color photographs, UV-light features, enhanced watermarks and a transparent window.
”We tried to include something on every page to make life as difficult as possible for counterfeiters”, Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel said during the presentation, according to news outlet RTL Today.
The new biometric passport came into force on the same day that its legal framework was published in Luxembourg’s official gazette. Existing passports will not be renewed, the government says.
Luxembourg has not disclosed the supplier of the new passport in its procurement notices. The country has previously worked with Thales Group through its former Gemalto division. Gemalto was selected in 2015 as a “one-stop provider” for a new passport that included fingerprints and facial biometrics, alongside ICAO Supplemental Access Control (SAC) protections.
Meanwhile, the government has been working with Veridos on supplying biometric kiosks for the European border control system, the Entry-Exit System (EES).
Article Topics
biometric passport | digital ID | Luxembourg | travel documents