A passport attached to its roots and open to the world
Perhaps you have already held it in your hands? It is red with a white cross. The new Swiss passport is a small object, but every square millimetre of its pages is packed with cutting edge technology. The new passport was fresh off the press in autumn 2022, and ranks among the passports boasting the most advanced security technologies in the world.
After 20 years, the security features of the old passport have been completely reworked, as has the infrastructure required to produce it. The various components of the passport booklet are assembled by the Confederation at a highly secure facility that guarantees the optimum protection of personal data. Thanks to state-of-the-art technology, the passport is produced very quickly and sent to the holders' homes just as quickly. The newly designed passport prevents counterfeiters from using the latest techniques to replicate it, and makes it easy for the police, customs authorities or the private sector (banks, post office) to check its authenticity.
A security-laced design
The design of the new passport evokes a journey through Switzerland’s 26 cantons, from the Alps to the low-lying areas. Each page of the new Swiss passport has been thought through from start to finish and features the themes of mountains and water. The triangle on the inside cover represents water with a dynamic effect thanks to optically variable ink. The hologram, which protects the portrait of the passport holder on the data page, offers a 3D view of the summit of Pizzo Rotondo, the highest mountain in the Gotthard massif. The topographical lines in UV inks on all the pages for visa stamps honour Switzerland’s mapping tradition.
The order in which the cantons appear on these pages was determined by the altitude of their highest point, from highest to lowest. Each page features a famous monument from each canton under UV light. For the first time, a page for visa stamps is also dedicated to the Fifth Switzerland, the Swiss abroad.
With its innovative security features and unrivalled print quality, the Swiss passport is among the most advanced passports in the world when it comes to security.
A large number of stakeholders from the Federal Administration and the private sector have been involved in creating a new passport that is at the cutting edge of innovation and security. Design, security, functionality and aesthetics had to be harmonised. fedpol, as the conductor of the orchestra, made sure that everyone worked in concert. Creating a new passport presented a huge technical challenge, but also a challenge to get everyone on board, not only the stakeholders but also the general public. After all, the passport is a token of Swiss identity.
Best New Passport in 2023
In March 2023, the Swiss passport won the award for the best new passport at the prestigious High Security Printing Conference, held this year in Abu Dhabi. This conference awards an annual prize to countries for the quality of their newly created identity documents or banknotes. The quality of the Swiss passport has therefore been recognised by experts in the field.
What should the new Swiss passport look like?
Creating a document like this passport involves choices, in particular as far as creativity and innovation are concerned.
For example, the design of the inside cover pages changed significantly during the design process, from a highly figurative first draft to a more realistic last one. The themes of mountains and water are presented in several variations.
The inside front cover then had to be matched with the back of the polycarbonate page containing the biographical data. The mountainous relief runs through both pages. Finding the right balance in the colour of the relief between the two pages with different materials was a real challenge. A challenge, but above all an additional guarantee of security against forgery.