Development of an e-Passport was a key project for the Irish government, the completion of which had to be met against an aggressive schedule. Under the United States visa waiver programme, participating countries are required to move to full production of biometric passports before 26 October, 2006. This has serious implications for Ireland, which is one of the top 10 visiting nations, with an estimated 500,000 Irish citizens visiting the U.S. last year. The bulk of these visits were visa free.
Main results, benefits and impacts
This project ensures that Ireland's passport document continues to one of the most secure travel documents in the world. In addition, holders of the Irish passport can continue to travel to the US under the visa waiver program.Return on investment
Return on investment: Not applicable / Not availableLessons learnt
Key learnings relate to the need to continually test and validate interoperability of the encoded passport with various passport readers to ensure that the documents can be read by border control agencies.
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