NEC Solutions Asia Pacific, a unit of Japan's third-largest electronics conglomerate NEC Corp, will develop passports for Singapore that include biometric data such as facial features and fingerprints, the firm said on Monday. NEC Solutions Asia Pacific Pte Ltd said in a statement that the deal with the tightly-controlled city-state's Home Affairs Ministry was worth S$9.7 million ($6 million).
Singapore and 26 other states which have visa-waiver agreements with the United States must issue biometric passports by a October 26, 2005 deadline to maintain visa-free access to the US for its citizens.
The US law was designed to tighten border security after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Under the new system, electronic passports will be embedded with a "smart card" which can identify travellers through facial recognition, fingerprints and iris scanning.