DALLAS, April 7 /PRNewswire/ --

- Entrust to present ePassport capabilities at Nigerian ICAO event

Just six months after an impressive showing at the ePassports EAC Conformity Interoperability Tests in Prague, Czech Republic, Entrust, Inc. (Nasdaq: ENTU) aims to further strengthen its global leadership position. The ePassport security expert will express strong support for the creation of Master List Signing during this week's ICAO Regional Seminar on Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs), Biometrics and Security Standards in Abuja, Nigeria.

While full adoption of Master List creation and signing is still on the horizon, its benefits are too important to ignore, said Entrust President and CEO Bill Conner. We fully support this initiative - so much so, Entrust has enabled a Master List Signing certificate profile within the upcoming release of our proven ePassport security solution. This will enable our customers to strategically develop their Master List Signing capabilities from a trusted security partner.

In development by the ICAO, the Master Signing List is a simple method to reduce expensive, time-consuming duplication that exists in the current ePassport verification process. Once a certain number of countries have imported the signature verification keys from a number of issuing countries, a level of assurance develops in the veracity of the verification keys. If they then publish those keys in Master Lists, a third country can import the Master Lists - along with the verification keys of those countries that signed them - and validate them with an understanding that there has already been some assurance established in the keys on the Master Lists.

With the judicious application of import rules, the third country can achieve the required level of assurance in the authenticity of some or all of those keys - without incurring the full expense, time-delay and inconvenience of independently importing them directly from the issuing countries.

In Nigeria, Entrust will also demonstrate advanced capabilities in Basic Access Control (BAC) and Extended Access Control (EAC) technology. Entrust is currently the only security vendor that offers a dual-rooted ePassport solution, which enables organizations to deploy BAC ePassports and then seamlessly migrate to EAC ePassports from a single platform.

Even though some countries aren't yet required to issue EAC ePassports, Entrust believes providing a dual-rooted platform will ease and simplify global adoption of the technology, said Conner. This capability is especially attractive for governments who haven't started ePassport deployment but want to maximize their investment and be ready for the upcoming EAC standard.

Countries are in the process of evolving their ePassport programs to a second-generation framework that includes capabilities for EAC. European Union (EU) member countries will be required to add fingerprint data to machine readable travel documents (MRTDs) with the biometric information protected through the EAC scheme by June.

The ICAO event, hosted with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED), brings together various national security agencies, civil registries, national and other identity issuers and managers, passport-issuing agencies, immigration, customs, police, civil aviation, facilitation and other border control and security authorities.

Entrust has a long history of providing security software and services to government agencies across the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Singapore, Taiwan and New Zealand. 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.

About Entrust

Entrust [NASDAQ: ENTU] provides trusted solutions that secure digital identities and information for enterprises and governments in 2,000 organizations spanning 60 countries. Offering trusted security for less, Entrust solutions represent the right balance between affordability, expertise and service. These include SSL, strong authentication, fraud detection, digital certificates and PKI. For information, call +1-888-690-2424, e-mail entrust@entrust.com or visit 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 of Entrust, Inc., +1-972-728-0415, brooke.hamilton@entrust.com / PHOTO: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060720/NYTH074LOGO