Identity rights management (IRM) software vendor Epok said the Kingdom of
Jordan will incorporate its ID management platform to process digital
passports, or smart cards, officials announced Wednesday.
Jordan is the second country to adopt smart card technology from Dubai-based
Datel. Last month, the Dubai Naturalization and Residency Department (DNRD)
selected Datel’s E-Gate smart card as an alternative to manually processing
incoming and outgoing passengers at its international airport.
Both countries will be using Epok’s Trusted Data Exchange 4.0 (TDX 4.0)
platform to manage the information interface between the two governments,
allowing Jordan and Dubai to exchange information on passengers crossing
each other’s borders without giving up control over the information found in
their respective databases.
“We immediately recognized the enhancements E-Gate could add to our border
security efforts,” said Hanna Najjar, Jordan’s Civil Aviation
Authority director general, in a statement. “However, we also have an obligation to scrutinize every
aspect of such a system. After evaluating the data
control capabilities of Epok’s TDX and interviewing the Epok team, we are
highly confident that the system will give us unprecedented control of the
information we intend to share.”
Ayman Hariri, Epok president and CEO, said this is the first example of
international electronic border security in the world and expects other
governments to adopt the technology once it’s proven to work.
“Countries are just not into sharing information with each other easily, and
to have an automated system to that is a really big deal,” he said. “We
think in today’s world, where security is a major issue, securing travel
is one of the top priorities in pretty much every country.
“King Addullah II [of Jordan] has been adamant about using technology for
the betterment of a lot of things in the country,” Hariri continued. “This
is something he’s very much a supporter of, certainly to create a more
secure environment for travel.”
While he wouldn’t mention specifics, Hariri said the company is in
negotiations with several countries around the world — mainly in Europe,
Asia and the Middle East — and is confident he will be making similar
announcements in the next six to 12 months.
The Bethesda, Md., company adheres to the open standards and protocols in
ID management — such as Passport or the Liberty Alliance — but isn’t
particularly married to any one because of its focus on the unification of
information within one organization.
Epok’s ID management platform is based
more on standards that focus on the interaction between different companies:
OASIS’ Extensible Resource Identifier (XRI), a specification co-authored by
Epok; XRI Data Interchange (XDI); and Extensible Name Service (XNS). Taken
together, the ID management platform extends on the security of technology
like SSL
individual or agency.
The end goal for Epok, and companies like it, is the eventual
replacement of paper passports as an international identification scheme or
different smart cards for different countries. While the smart card use is
opt-in right now, Hariri said there’s the possibility down the road that a
single digital passport will become mandatory in the future. And that’s a
good thing for customs agents.
“It’s a very empowering concept for immigration agencies around the world,”
Hariri said. “You’re not relying so heavily on an analog way of doing
things. There are tons of things that have to go through the mind of a
person there who’s looking through the stamps on your passport and trying to
decipher them.”
