EU Laissez-Passer now embedded in a high security infrastructure
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission is home to thousands of scientists working to support EU policy in specialist laboratories and unique research facilities. As an EU institution, the JRC issues the EU Laissez-Passer - an administrative travel document that serves similar purposes to a diplomatic passport - and was therefore in need for a security infrastructure to protect these documents reliably. Following the relevant regulation and associated implementing legislation, the issuance of the EU Laissez-Passer requires the set-up and operation of two independent PKIs as the backbone security infrastructure. One is to ensure the data on the chip of the passport is authentic and protected, the other one makes sure that authorized means and personnel only access the data.
In this context, JRC decided to collaborate with secunet and to implement components of the eID PKI Suite: secunet delivered the security modules Single Point of Contact (SPOC), National Public Key Directory (NPKD) and Deviation list Signer (DLS). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the secunet experts installed the PKI system completely remotely and offered the training and testing via a remote access. The JRC team in Ispra now operates the PKI system while software maintenance is provided by secunet. With the comprehensive functionality of the system all involved EU participants benefit from the highest level of document and identity security.
“The cooperation with the secunet PKI experts was highly professional, constructive and solution oriented. We are glad that the issuance of the EU Laissez-Passer is now secured by a proven solution.”
