With Digital India, the demand for ID card printers will increase in next five years: Wei Jin Lee of HID Global
Tell us about HID Global’s presence in the Indian market with respect to its products and solutions?
HID Global is the trusted source for innovative products, services, solutions, and know-how related to the creation, management, and use of secure identities for millions of customers around the world. The company’s served markets include physical and logical access control, including strong authentication and credential management; card printing and personalization; visitor management systems; highly secure government and citizen ID; and identification RFID technologies used in animal ID and industry and logistics applications.
HID Global has been present in the Indian market since late 90’s. In fact, when it comes to ID cards, we are the pioneers in secure and trusted identity solutions. We have an India office with local incorporation and a business development team that takes care of the market needs in India. We operate through a network of channel partners to reach our prospective customers.
How do you see the demand for ID card printers in a developing country like India, Bangladesh, where the focus of the government is on Digitization ?
The demand for desktop ID card printers is growing in India and neighboring countries like Bangladesh. We expect the demand to grow higher over the next five years and government initiatives like the Digital India will create a big impact on the demand for smart cards and in turn card printers.
India as a country in the printer segment is unstructured. We have local manufacturers who provide very low cost machines and devices for KYOC. In such a segregated market, how do you plan to position your product?
First of all, India is a huge country and geographically, it is at a great advantage. Our printers look like a desktop which can be put anywhere. Around 20 years ago, the US green card was created by HID Global and they are working with us even today. Everybody tries to hack the US green card but the reason why US government has been using HID for 20 years is because they have never had a bad experience with our security features. We have different kinds of printers and they all focus into different market. For example, FARGO DTC5500LMX ID Card Printer/Encoder is designed to meet the high-volume, card issuance demands of large government agencies, universities, healthcare facilities and other large enterprises. Different printers can target different market segments. Fargo was acquired by HID in 2006.
HID has over 70 patents for retransfer printing technology, enabling the highest level of printing quality available on the market today. Over 100 countries worldwide rely on HID Global’s printer / encoder solutions for their national ID programs. We have over 20-year history of producing new-to-the-world innovations, such as the vanGO patch, which creates a unique image of the cardholder that cannot be easily duplicated or forged, practically preventing counterfeiting of secure identities.
As the Indian government is focusing more on issuing Aadhaar cards and unique identification numbers to all its citizens, what kind of demand that you foresee ?
The demand is definitely very high. The government has made a smart decision by aiming to issue Aadhar cards and unique identification numbers to all citizens of the country. Providing high security ID cards would be key and we believe that HID Global can work very closely with the government in this area.
The resolution of a card is very important. When you are holding a card, you need to validate where it came from. A good identity card should have very high resolution so that it can be verified physically. Where others are talking of giving 300 dpi, HID is trying to provide a resolution of 600 dpi. HID Global’s eco-friendly DTC5500LMX ID card personalisation solution includes the company’s “wasteless” lamination technology that significantly lowers card issuance costs. The new feature enables cost-conscious organisations to routinely issue secure, durable cards in high volumes without sacrificing quality. Innovative wasteless lamination technology completely eliminates traditional carrier-film waste, offering a 40 percent savings in consumables costs. DTC5500LMX is world’s first Green Circle certified wasteless lamination printer with 60 percent savings in energy consumption New iONTM technology allows printer / laminator to heat up and initiate lamination in just 45 seconds, saving users up to 80 percent of the time typically needed to print the first card.
Tell us about your key business verticals ? What kind of services will be offered on goID platform?
We have different products for different segments. However, in our portfolio, we have many more printers, many different models for different markets. So definitely government is of key importance to us, including enforcement, IVE, e-government initiatives and so on. Corporate enterprises is also a major segment for us. They contribute to our business in India specifically. We do cover other segments and continue to develop towards many others. I would say that these are the top two followed by other segments.
The type of citizen services that will be made available on a platform like goID will be dependent on the services governments offer and wish to implement. The HID goID platform for mobile IDs enables driver licenses and other government IDs to be carried on smartphones that become all-in-one devices for receiving, presenting and authenticating mobile IDs with the highest level of privacy protection. There are many factors that affect that decision. Some examples could be; driver’s license, vehicle registration, workers or residents permits, medical Card (where state medical care is provided), age verification – for purchase of tobacco and alcohol, access control to ATM lobbies etc, bank ID verification for major transactions – account open/close etc and validation of ID for a range and government service.
