MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- LaserCard Corporation announced that it has received an order for approximately $500,000 of LaserCard optical memory cards from Anteon Corporation for delivery to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this month. The U.S. Department of State will issue these cards as "Laser Visa" Border Crossing Cards to eligible Mexican citizens who regularly cross the U.S. border. The Laser Visa cards will be issued by the U.S. embassy and consulates in Mexico. Laser Visa holders are allowed up to 30 days in the U.S. border region.
This order is in addition to the $6.8 million of LaserCard optical memory cards, including $5.0 million of Permanent Resident Cards ("Green Cards") and approximately $1.8 million of Border Crossing Cards, recently ordered by Anteon for DHS.
"We are pleased to see the continuing rollout of the Laser Visas in Mexico," said Richard Haddock, chief executive officer of LaserCard Corporation. "Additionally, we are watching for upcoming policy developments on the Department of Homeland Security's new Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Among the recommendations in the Initiative, DHS has proposed that Laser Visas may be used in place of passports for Mexican citizens entering the United States. This is particularly significant since the Laser Visa fully complies with the requirements of the Border Security Act of 2002. So, from a legal and technical point of view, the same model could equally apply to other nations."
The Laser Visa cards incorporate fingerprint biometric data for one-to-one identity verification. In late 2003, the Department of Homeland Security purchased 1,000 optical memory-based Biometric Verification Systems (BVS) for use in authenticating the card and verifying the cardholder's identity. The BVS is also compatible with many other optical memory secure IDs, including the approximately nine million Green Cards in circulation. Other nations' optical cards complying with ICAO's Logical Data Structure are fully interoperable with the DHS system, including the Italian national ID card and the Canadian Permanent Resident card.
Including backlog carried over from last fiscal year, LaserCard now has optical memory card bookings for shipment this year totaling nearly $10 million.
