Zetes wins Belgian government contract for the next generation of e-ID card middleware

A major development in extending the functionality of the Belgian e-ID card
 
Following an open international tender, Zetes has been awarded a new two-year contract by Fedict (the Belgian Federal public service of Information Technology and Communication) for extending and further enhancing the middleware tools that interface the Belgian e-ID card with all citizens and information systems.

In 2002, the Belgian government took a lead in public ID security documents in Europe, by launching its National e-ID card project. At the moment, about 50% of Belgian citizens over the age of 12 already own their National e-ID card. At the start of the project, Zetes was appointed as the main contractor for card production, personalisation and distribution, and also for software developments, including the Belgian e-ID card middleware.

Four years later, Fedict launched an open and international invitation to tender for the development of a totally new generation of this middleware, aimed at:

• extending and further enhancing the Belgian e-ID card middleware tools,  thus enriching the functionalities of the current version;
• implementing high-quality management procedures and services, based on the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) methodology and framework, to ensure the quality of this new generation and further releases.
   

Proof of quality

In this very open and challenging environment, Zetes is proud to have been awarded the contract for this new development.

In the words of Ronny Depoortere, Senior VP Zetes PASS: By renewing its confidence in Zetes, Fedict not only testifies to the high quality of our e-ID tools and best practices implemented in the first generations of the Belgian e-ID card middleware, but also, more recently, for the Portuguese Citizens ID card project, where Zetes was again selected to provide customised middleware tools. Moreover, by implementing the ITIL methodology in our PASS team, all our People ID customers will benefit from still higher quality in our services.

The purpose of Fedict is to support the development of electronic ID card applications (e-ID) in the public and private sectors," said Jan Deprest, Chairman of Fedict. "To this end, Fedict launched a European Invitation to Tender and finally selected Zetes as the provider of the pilot e-ID card software for the next two years. The pilot software is supplied free to citizens and developers and is downloadable from the eid.belgium.be site. The pilot software also offers benefits in terms of security, inter-operability, integration with the principal Operating Systems (Microsoft, Linux and Apple) and the flexibility to make changes to the e-ID card.

About Zetes

ZETES INDUSTRIES is a leading pan-European company in the value-added solutions and services industry for Automatic Identification of Goods and People (Goods ID and People ID).  Zetes uses both emerging and mature technologies (barcode, voice recognition, RFID, smartcards, biometrics), and develops Solution Architecture Frameworks to optimize the business performance of many customers in many market segments: manufacturing, transportation, logistics, retail, healthcare, finance, telecommunication, government and public services. The Zetes group has its headquarters in Brussels, with subsidiaries in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. Zetes currently employs more than 600 employees (in FTEs) and generated consolidated revenues of 137.5 million in 2006.