DALLAS, December 8 /PRNewswire/ --

- Finland's EAC migration to meet European Union's June 2009 deadline

Building off of the momentum of September's impressive showing at the ePassports EAC Conformity Interoperability Tests, Entrust, Inc. (Nasdaq: ENTU) advances its role as the world's ePassport leader by being selected to supply the CA software for Finland's migration to advanced second-generation ePassports based on the Extended Access Control (EAC) standard.

Second-generation ePassports represent the beginning of an evolution that will improve the reliability and security of electronic travel documents, said System Integrator Erkki Wuoma at the Finnish Population Register Centre. Entrust's EAC ePassport CA solution was selected because it was a ready, well-documented, fully supported and security evaluated product.

With the European Union's June 2009 deadline for migration to the EAC standard looming, Finland's Population Register Centre expects the transition to the new EAC ePassport CA solution to be complete by the end of the first quarter in 2009. Upon migration, the Finnish Population Register Centre will be able to provide the Finnish Police the ePassport CA services needed for the issuing of EAC ePassports to its citizens. To support its migration to the new EAC ePassport CA solution, the Finnish Population Register Centre acquires Professional Services and security hardware from its partner nCipher.

With the importance of national border security top of mind, Finland recognized the need to meet the EU June 2009 deadline by partnering with the leader in ePassport security, said Entrust President and CEO Bill Conner. The second generation of ePassports raises the bar for border security and the integrity of identity documents, truly ensuring that criminals cannot circumvent border controls. We applaud Finland for making the move to EAC ePassports as they will severely limit criminal organizations' ability to forge travel documents and cross borders undetected.

Much like Finland, countries are now beginning to evolve their ePassport programs to a second-generation framework that includes capabilities for EAC. European Union (EU) Member States will be required to add fingerprint data to machine-readable travel documents (MRTDs) with the information protected through the EAC scheme by or before the June 2009 deadline.

The second generation of ePassports, based on EAC, allows governments to leverage a stronger biometric (typically a fingerprint or iris scan) that is more difficult to impersonate. They require the passport reader to authenticate itself to the passport chip, thereby preventing skimming, the practice of an unauthorized reader interrogating the chip and extracting sensitive personal information. EAC ePassports also strengthen the encryption of the communication between the chip and the reader; thereby preventing eavesdropping of the passport data.

Because of the requirement for the passport chip to authenticate the reader, the PKI requirements are much higher, demanding a vendor that can provide scalability, reliability and unprecedented performance. It is this PKI foundation that allows ePassports to be read at border stations, but not by criminals who may seek access to the data for purposes of manipulation or impersonation.

Entrust has a long history of providing security software and services to government agencies across the world. Entrust provides security solutions for e-government and national security initiatives in more than 30 countries worldwide. Government agencies are leveraging the flexible and scalable solutions that Entrust offers to secure transactions and information internally and with citizens, businesses, suppliers and contractors.

The top e-governments in the world rely on Entrust. As ranked by Accenture, the top eight e-governments in the world, including Finland, Singapore, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, use Entrust solutions to protect sensitive information and enable secure online services.

About the Finnish Population Register Centre

The Finnish Population Register Centre produces personal and building data services of the highest quality, as well as identification solutions for online services to cater for the different needs of the society. The Centre develops and maintains the Population Information System, the Guardianship Register and the Public Sector Contact Directory, and provides assistance for organizing elections. The Centre is the national Certification Authority services provider, and creates the electronic identity for Finnish citizens when providing them with a personal identity code and the electronic ID. The Centre also provides eID's for government employees, as well as for employees in other organizations. The Centre is the only CA in Finland that issues qualified certificates as specified in the Act on Electronic Signatures and the relevant EU Directive. The Population Register Centre is also the CA provider for the first generation of ePassports in Finland.

Founded in 1969, the Population Register Centre operates under Finland's Ministry of Finance and aims to be a Reliable Service Centre for the Information Society and develop its activities to best meet the needs of its customers -- the government, the private sector and citizens.

About Entrust

Entrust [NASDAQ: ENTU] secures digital identities and information for consumers, enterprises and governments in more than 2,000 organizations spanning 60 countries. Leveraging a layered security approach to address growing risks, Entrust solutions help secure the most common digital identity and information protection pain points in an organization. These include SSL, authentication, fraud detection, shared data protection and e-mail security. For information, call +1-888-690-2424, e-mail entrust@entrust.com or visit http://www.entrust.com.

Entrust is a registered trademark of Entrust, Inc. in the United States and certain other countries. In Canada, Entrust is a registered trademark of Entrust Limited. All Entrust product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Entrust, Inc. or Entrust Limited. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Brooke Hamilton, Media Relations of Entrust, +1-972-713-5915, brooke.hamilton@entrust.com /Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060720/NYTH074LOGO