Globally, the market for government issued identity documents is expected to grow to over 7 billion documents in circulation by the end of 2014.  In its latest report, IMS Research details the market for driver’s licenses, healthcare cards, national ID, e-passports and other applications.  One of the main findings is that the market for traditional cards and paper-based documents, combined with smart cards is now approaching the 6 billion mark – and is soon to break seven billion!

 

This growth is as a result of an increased requirement for identification in a number of applications and regions.  There remain security issues to be addressed but to a greater degree there is a need to prevent fraud and deliver more efficient public and social services to citizens.  What the report found is that smart cards are being increasingly deployed to provide more secure forms of identity to national citizens around the world.

 

“These figures are based on a careful country by country analysis, looking at new contracts and programs in each”, said Research Director, John Devlin.  “There has been a recent surge of programs being launched and announced – particularly in countries looking to employ smart card-based solutions.  This ranges from preventing electoral or social welfare fraud to ensuring that some of the world’s poorest citizens are able to correctly access medical services.”

Devlin continued, “There has been a raft of announcements relating to smart card implementations, and whilst these are growing in momentum the market currently remains dominated by the paper, mag-stripe and printed cards that have traditionally been issued.  However, most regions now seem to have accepted smart cards as the way ahead and in less than five years we expect one in two documents in circulation to be smart card-based.”

 

This move has been led by e-passports, as many countries skip a technology generation and press ahead with e-passport launches ahead of the pending 1st April deadline from ICAO for the adoption of machine readable passports.  This has had the effect of raising the profile of smart cards and what they offer in terms of secure identification.  As a result governments and other organisations are looking at how else they might be employed to reduce overall costs and improve security.

 

Interestingly, the report finds that whilst e-passports are a high profile application for smart card-based solutions, it is not the biggest.  Annual shipments of healthcare and national ID cards are both higher and growing quicker.  “The China national ID program is the largest undertaken to date, with close to 1 billion cards having been issued but it is not alone, with many countries implementing similar schemes the market being served market will grow by 70% to 2014” concluded Devlin.