 Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers. I am Claudia Monde-Louis. Thank you for joining us. Our topic is based on St Lucia's imminent migration to the e-passport system. And with me to enlighten us on this project is Mr. Lucia Slake of the St Lucia Border Control Agency and an immigration expert along with project manager with Canadian Banknote Limited, Mr. Kathleen Chidore, who is on island providing support to this project. Welcome gentlemen. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having us. Definitely a hot topic is St Lucia's introduction or migration to the e-passport system. The e-passport is a document which has been around in as far back as perhaps the 90s for some countries but the region is just coming on board and definitely in St Lucia we are new to it. So I would like to kick off our discussion by asking what is an e-passport and what gives the e-passport the edge as a more secure document? Kathleen? So actually the e-passport was first introduced in 2005 but the e-passport is the next generation of travel document and has many advantages as well as benefits for the bearer of the document. So it's adding a compliant microchip and it will strengthen the security value offered by the by the passport. In turn the e-passport can reduce the risk of other countries imposing visa requirements on travelers. It can be also used in e-gates where the technology and programs exist. So in selected cases states are obliged or motivated to introduce the e-passports due to some bilateral and multilateral agreements such as the US visa waiver program and there are some comparable agreements in the EU. So it should be noted that some of these programs have expanded since the introduction of e-passports so only in part the secure nature of the document and the risk assessment performed on any country by country basics. So with the introduction of e-passports St Lucia citizen traveling to EU may benefit greatly given that EU has agreed to extend their visa exam program to include a number of Caribbean nations. Sounds good thanks for that comprehensive introduction Mr. Leak can you give us some background to the into the machine readable passports which was introduced here at about 2005. Yes 2005 there about St Lucia moved in from the handwritten passport to the machine readable passport and that was all championed by Canadian Bank note. There have been numerous upgrades where that system is concerned at this point in time we have had as many upgrades as the system permits the same way one would have Windows XP which is now extinct. We had to move forward. Canadian Bank note has been a partner who we have worked with. They can no longer support the issuance of production or printing of the machine readable passports we have now. So the gradual move of progression is into the new e-passport which what Kathleen spoke about. We are one of 136 countries worldwide who have moved on into the e-passport. It's not just St Lucia alone we have our brothers and sisters and Tegan, Barbuda, Bahamas, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Grenada, St Kitsa Nives, Belize should be coming on sometime this year and Jamaica sometime in 2023. So we had the latest kids in the block we have all the latest technology right put into e-passports coming to St Lucia that is where we are right now. Okay let us unpack Kathleen terms like microchip and biodeater and biometric so that all citizens can actually understand what that means. Okay so basically e-passports reduced the risk of tempering and identity fraud by adding a digital record of the information contained on the printing area on the microchip. So for an e-passport to be considered genuine and unaltered the microchip data must be the printed data. So also the biological information is specific to the data loaded into the microchip and cannot be tempered with it edited or modified once programmed. So once the the passport is printed also the data in the same time it gets embedded to the microchip and after that the microchip will be closed so nobody can edit it afterwards. So it can be only read. So when you are going to border management system it will read the data from the page like it did with the old passports and also it will read the data from the chip and they will compare the data to be similar so if the chip is altered it will not work. What the chip has and it's a new thing it's a certificate that's generated by the government of Saint Lucia. So it's a certificate only generated by the government of Saint Lucia and it will be read and acknowledged in the time of the border passing and also like I said before it can be used with e-gates so if you go to an airport that has that you only put your passport there it will read your data you will go and a camera will see that it's you and you will pass to the e-gate more quickly. Okay will a camera be used we introduce here locally as well to take a shot of the traveler. So we have in the new system there will be a live camera that will take your picture and it can be used like that. So in the future people can take their photos as now or they can use the camera that we have. Okay wonderful and in terms of the friendliness of the whole system it certainly sounds very much so that it is something that the general public need not be flustered about. Mr. Lake some persons of course would wonder about the validity of their machine readable passport which is which is not due for renewals yet. How will the two systems run alongside each other? The introduction of the new e-passport does not mean that your present machine readable passport is not valid. Persons who have had passports issued in the last few weeks or even on Friday of last week your passport is valid until its expiration date. Take it into account some countries require six months in advance. So six months from your expiry date of your present machine readable passport it is valid. This is not a call to ask persons who come and change their present valid machine readable passport to get the new e-passport. Your e-passport is valid. What is not going to happen is when that present machine readable passport expires you will not be issued a machine readable passport. You have no choice but to migrate to the new e-passport. So this is actually phasing out of the machine readable passport and going to the new e-passport. That's the easiest to get it done. So the questions persons have don't come and change your passport. Now travel with it it is still valid. Six months before it expires get a new one. Good to go. Okay. I trust that persons who are holders of the machine readable passport now feel more at ease more relaxed that the passport is still valid. It's not obsolete. It's just that new applicants will be the first to receive the e-passports. We aim to go live on July 25th 2002. I will have you explain that in detail Mr. Lake but then first I will go to Catalin so he can speak to our state of readiness leading up to hopefully the 25th of July. So for now I don't see any major hiccups. So I think the go live will be on the 25th. So on the 25th we will be able to provide new passports to the solution as it is. So what are some of the processes that are ongoing now leading up to to this? So we are preparing our server in the data centers. We are preparing the new passport office with new equipment, state of the art equipment, new workstations, new monitors, new cameras, new printers, new scanners. So everything will be new. The workflow will be almost almost the same but I think the speed will increase in order for the processing of applications and the back end part of it, data quality and so on. So it will be an improved system altogether. Was there any need to undertake some training of the staff? Yes, training of the staff will come in next week. So we have trainers from the Canadian Bank coming on island and will train all the operators on how to handle the new application. What it is and the difference with this one will be the ability to submit your passport application forms online. I have studied before and the person has the question unless the system is up and running, we cannot give information for the online portal to work in that regard. The interesting thing about this new process going forward in the event of persons who are renewing their passports, you come in if your application form which is loaded into the scanner, it is scanned, the documents are handed to you, you sign off, where a screen will show the documents which have been submitted. In cases when there are further investigations to do or you have interviews, your documents will be retained but a normal application with no changes to it, you submit to at reception, it is scanned, handed to you, you sign off for receiving it and you move on. That's the speed in which we intend to happen. And like Kathleen said, the back end, everything is changed and it has met the requirements going forward if all the technology has to offer. So the process should be quicker in that regard. The only hiccups we may see if persons come with documents that need rectifying or changing who would have had these issues before, the new system will not mean that it changes the process of applying for the passport. It means the speed at which the operators will accept and produce that passport. That's the only thing going forward in that regard. And then again, the ability for the passport office to take pictures, that is back on roll again. And sometimes we know they have issues going to various shops to get pictures taken and you get the issue with the passport office saying the passport pictures do not meet the requirements. Customers have the ability to get passport pictures taken at the office. So we've been in a better position. Because of this process, we were able to address some shortfalls that will exist in and for the increase the capacity of the passport office. Yes, very much so. Good. We are talking about increased efficiency. We're talking about speed. And we have, say, a bumper summer probably ahead of us. So we will look into the implications of that as the world is traveling again after the break. She's been watching, waiting, wondering when the sands of time will give way to a tide of change. And for yesterday and today to become a new tomorrow. For a time when her son can kiss the cheeks of your loved one and her stars can twinkle in her honeymoon skies. When her earthly embrace will reassure and calm your soul, old perspective, he has risen to meet new challenges and to provide safe harbor to all who reach her shores. For her hopes and dreams still stand shoulder to shoulder. A precious reminder of experiences yet to come and memories take you. Let her sense of adventure set you free. Welcome back to issues and answers. I am Claudia Monri and we are discussing St. Lucia's imminent migration to the ePassport system. Mr. Lake, I alluded to what might be or can be anticipated to be a bumper summer upcoming as post COVID or with the decrease in the impact of COVID, persons are traveling again after almost two years of not being able to do so. And we're going live on the 25th of July, which is right in the heart of the summertime, our time when we receive a large number of visitors. What is the plan? How do we foresee handling this? There will be a bit of a cutoff period in that regard. The two systems cannot work simultaneously. You can't be printing the old machine-medial passports and printing new passports. There will be a cutoff period. The intention is not to disrupt staff in any way at all. Not staff, members of the public coming with their request for passports. We expect a lot of persons to come in, but with the new system, with the training going on next week and the system coming live, I have no doubt that the staff will be able to handle it. There's just a number of persons who would be wanting to come in in that regard. But a cutoff period where you stop issuing the machine-medial ones to move into the new e-passport. That is the only little hiccup where we have to manage it to ensure that persons who need to travel and you get a request for emergencies and all of it. We open that during that transition period that we have no emergencies where persons would not have the ability to travel. So this is what a lot of time will be spent in managing to ensuring that persons who have to can and everybody else will wait until they get a bank spanking e-passport. And quite so and noting that's a number of persons have been patiently waiting. They've been on hold. That has been managed as well. Whereas I can't speak too much for the immigration department and what they have in hand in relation to the amount of passports, there has to be a migration period where you move away from one into the other. So before the end of the week, we will have discussions with the immigration department to see exactly where they are with that and then we can report or give some more information as deemed necessary. Interestingly enough, when we go live, our domestic population will not as yet be in possession of the new e-passport. But I would imagine of course international and regional travelers whose country have already introduced these documents would have it and would provide us the opportunity to process it and perhaps monitor and evaluate. Yes, the new body management system we have launched is able to read e-passports as well as machine-readable passports. So it's not an issue. We are ready. Once this goes live, we are ready to receive the multitude coming in to enjoy our cannibal activities. We're ready for it. I have no doubt that we can handle that volume of traffic coming in. A significant amount of work has gone through this project. This project could have gone live at least two years ago but the COVID had some issues, especially with no movements from CBN and their persons and shipping lines had stopped. Not all equipment was received during that time factor. So it pushed back all we had to do which brings us to this stage now. Initially, the discussion was to go live in August but the pushback was less to how soon we can get it because of the weight of persons. The world as I said is opening now for persons to travel. So we're able to work out to go live the 25th of July and that's just around the corner. Okay, let us now address the touching issue of the cost of the passport. It's a policy decision taken that the price of the passport be at $250. There was no malice or anything in that regard. It was migration from one system into the other because of the issues we will have with our present system. A number of persons have come out and asked a myriad of questions which we are going to address with CBN as we are going through the process but with all the new technologies and all what is going on there is a definite increase in all aspects of passport production. We don't have any of these resources that are available around the corner. They are specialized equipment that have to be brought in and installed which comes at the cost. I am not sure. I don't know that the government is making any large amount of money or any money in it. The intent is to ensure that we rank up there where it pertains to the 70 percent of the world who have gone through to e-passports and we maintain the credibility of our sandwiched passport and going forward that we will no longer be questioned at any points. And Kathleen spoke about the public key infrastructure or the public key directory which is the key point in showing that we are compliant as far as ICO mandates with passport production. So it is just to ensure that the population or solutions in general who are entitled to passports get a state of the art document accepted worldwide and allows international travel. And as you said we are not isolated in this. The international research shows that counterfeiters and fraudsters kind of have the passport as the document of choice for tampering and other illegal activities. And so as they themselves upgrade in their unlawful business then I would imagine that organizations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization would want to have a response as well so that they could ward off and minimize the impact of scammers and fraudsters. And like Kathleen said from the time when the passport is being created and printed the chip is encoded and it's sealed. And the information we have had are trailing all any tampering at all to that aspect of it will warrant the passport invalid. So once you go through a passport reader at any of the borders the two will not match it will prove that it is no longer valid has been tampered with and right there again right then the authorities can take action against whoever has that passport in their possession. It's a time where as person will see you can beat it at some point in time. As it stands right now any tampering will warrant the travel document invalid and unscanned by any bottom admin system it would pick up the authenticity or see that there have been trials in it in that regard. So I'm satisfied. Yeah but Kathleen how would you advise the hold of an e-passport to handle it in terms of exposure to perhaps water, liquids what could damage it can they scan it can they scan it on their own or take a put it in the photocopying machine and not compromise any of its features. They will handle the new passport as the old one with the same care. The thing is that now it bears also a microchip but it cannot be easily alternated so the the passports the blanks went to hard and thorough quality checks and testing so four hours and hours and different temperatures so they are they are pretty tough but basically handle the the new passport as the one as the as the old one with with a bit of of care even if they are like very very tough. Okay so very tough passports handle with care but it is also a resilient document. Yes yes how many passports are expected on islands in the Stelik overall the brand new passports. We expect 174,000 passports in the first we wouldn't we the intent is not to get all the passports done at once if there are any upgrades to the laminate or any upgrades that Ikea would put forward we get the passports incrementally for production and as that warrants we draw down on what we have so the the whole gamut of passports will not be in sandwich but we'll be with committed bank called on the pond request get passports sent in for printing. Okay and will the the printing be done here or everything is done here. What CBN is doing is actually installing as was previously done with the hand the machine readable passports all equipment pertaining to passport production is being installed we is out with the old and in with the new and the new ranks banking part of it which we can both about now we have state of the art. Okay and we're about to conclude our very informative discussion and I would now like to invite you to make some parting comments and then followed by Kathleen. Okay Senusha we are coming out of the new e-passport there is no rush to change your present passport if your passport is expired and you can hold on until the 25th when we go live coming and get it done persons with emergencies will still need to speak to the immigration department at this point in time there is no need to change your passport if it is valid for a six month period when we go live on the 25th of July then and thereafter you can come and apply for your passports and open up for world travel as it is this is not an intent to force anybody to ending at this point in time but to ensure we have a secure document which meets what the world requires now for all our solution travelers okay and perhaps we can quickly touch on the persons who have the 20th visa and because our passport is for five years as it goes in right now as you do if you're present machine readable passport there is no need to change your visa from one passport to the other I have two passports one if a visa and the current passport so the same would put in you have your new machine your e-passport and your old passport if your visa be it US Canadian French whichever visa you have you travel with two passports we don't have the authority in central to transfer passports from one passport to the other travel with the two in travel means that you need a passport for entry to the country and a visa lets the immigration process take place so you travel if you have two passports okay and Kathleen who has been taking care of the back end of things so as you mentioned I'm here on the island with my my team to make sure that everything will will go according to plan and you will have passport office equipment with state of the technology and you will have a new brand e-passport secured as ever and with a very nice new new design so from the week of the 25th you will see okay thank you so much for sharing so much light on this issue I think that it has been a very comprehensive and productive discussion and has definitely provided the public with a new or fresh perspective on what the e-passport initiative is all about from here at the studios of the government information service I am Claudia Monluy this has been issues and answers saying goodbye