Carabinieri Selects LaserCard

LaserCard Corporation has been awarded the contract to supply secure optical memory cards for the Carabinieri, the Italian national police force.

The cards will be issued as secure ID credentials to all uniformed and civilian employees of the agency nationwide and will store personal data including employment, biometric identification and health information. The company has received a purchase order valued at approximately $800,000 to design, produce and deliver the cards this summer.

The Carabinieri badges are the most sophisticated ID cards ever to utilize LaserCard’s tamperproof and highly counterfeit resistant optical memory technology. LaserCard has custom-designed a card structure that, in a single platform, integrates multiple technologies including an optical stripe, covert and overt security features and a contactless chip and antenna. The card design also ensures that Italy’s National Printer, Poligrafico, can add a contact chip to enable access to e-government services.

The optical stripe is designed to securely store personal data, including biometrics, and back up the chip technologies in case of failure. The contactless chip technology will control employees’ access to Carabinieri facilities. The cards will also be compatible with the national standards set for Italy’s Citizen ID Card and are designed to operate seamlessly within the planned national ID infrastructure.

“We are very pleased that one of Italy’s most security-focused national agencies has selected our highly secure ID cards to protect its employees. We believe this reaffirms the Italian government’s commitment to the highest level of internal security,” said Robert DeVincenzi, president and chief executive officer at LaserCard. “We believe that LaserCard’s technology is the most secure, flexible and suitable option for such a significant program since the optical memory cannot be altered or compromised.”

The Carabinieri card marks the fifth Italian ID program and the second Italian government employee ID program, after the Ministry of Justice, to adopt optical memory cards as secure ID credentials.

The purchase order was received from LaserCard’s Authorized Value-Added Reseller, Laser Memory Card S.p.A., of Rome. Italy’s national printer and mint, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato S.p.A. (Poligrafico) is the prime contractor for the project.