Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fred Mitchell, said plans to implement machine-readable, tamper-proof passports are presently underway and the government is “about ready” to announce the tendering exercise for a company to produce the documents.
“The proposals for the tendering exercise have to be signed off by me, and then a decision has to be made about the tenders. It will also need Cabinet approval to proceed to this stage, so we are in the process of generating the paperwork to get this decision done,” Mr Mitchell told the Guardian during a telephone interview on Friday.
According to Minister Mitchell, he is certain that Canadian Bank Note, a company that is widely known for printing machine-readable passports, visas and lottery tickets, will be making a bid to produce the passports. He also noted that he has received offers from the United States government in regards to producing the machine- readable passports, and those are also being considered.
Mr Mitchell said that it is unlikely that the Bahamas will have the machine-readable passports implemented by the established “soft” deadline of January, 2003. “Meeting the deadline is unlikely, as the time to order equipment is something like 11 months,” he said.
The machine-readable passports will facilitate “waiver agreements” with various countries, including the United States, for travel without a visa. The system, which is estimated to cost $5 million, will also be able to track the international whereabouts of a person by the single scanning of a bar code into a machine, Mr Mitchell said at a press conference in August, when he initially made the announcement.
The machine readable passports will resemble United States visas with a computerized image that can be scanned, he also said at the time.
“Similarly, when machine-readable passports are available in The Bahamas, there will be a bar code on the page and all the material related to that person, will be available by simply scanning across the machine,” Mr. Mitchell said, adding that those interested in being vendors for machine-readable systems, should be able to tender bids sometime in 2003.
Various issues, such as the amount of power supply needed, training and volume control, also had to be examined before the system is implemented, he said.
“We also have to ensure that those offices in the islands that issue passports would have the computers that will access the data bank here directly. What we hope is that once we move to this point, the passport will essentially be tamper-proof,” Mitchell said, adding that machine-readable passports are expected to alleviate inconveniences for many who travel to certain countries, such as Europe that do not have visa-issuing offices in The Bahamas.
During a visit to Jamaica in August, he said, he witnessed the machine-readable passport system in use that was purchased from Canadian Bank Note.
The Identification System Division of Canadian Bank Note Company has experienced strong demand for its products and systems, he said, becoming the preferred supplier to countries around the world. The company’s systems have been installed in over 40 countries on all continents, including government clients in Canada, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Azerbaijan and New Zealand.
Canadian Bank Note has extensive manufacturing operations for printing currency, passports, visas, lottery tickets, postage and other related products, as well as producing hardware devices, such as lottery terminals. The company has a large complement of software engineers for designing issuing and control systems. They also supply security printed products and related issuing and control systems in four business areas – Lottery, Identification, Payment Systems and Shareholder Services.
By Tamara McKenzie, The Nassau Guardian
