On the 31st of January 2022, the National Police Board of Finland signed a contract on the supply of Finnish passports, ID cards and residence permits, also covering related services.
Based on the competitive bidding round implemented in 2021, the chosen company is the current supplier Thales DIS Finland Oy. In this contract arrangement, the Police Board also has the proxy to represent the Finnish Immigration Service, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Digital and Population Data Services Agency.
The object of the Contract is the design, production and personalization of Finnish passports and ID cards as well as residence cards and residence permit cards, and the verification of the correctness of the documents and their delivery. The contract also covers services related to aspects such as citizen certificates, temporary passport personalization devices, storage, invoicing and production reporting and follow-up.
The procurement is made necessary because the current contract expires on 12 March 2023. The contract now signed becomes operative on 13 March 2023 and it is in force for five years. The new production period is preceded by the commissioning project, which involves, for example, the design and implementation of new documents and their production and distribution.
The most visible outcome of the new contract is the new design of passports and ID cards, taken into use as the new production period starts. The design and security features of the documents are updated at regular intervals because a document type in use for a long time becomes more vulnerable to abuse and fraud. Moreover, the security features in the documents and the chips contained in them are updated. The introduction of the updated versions has no impact on the validity of the passports and ID cards issued prior to the reform, and they will remain valid until the expiry date marked on the document.
