- · The secrecy of the specifications with the 2019 GGC and the secrecy of the tendering and expenditure procedure, as stated in the 2022 Greek Government Gazette decision
- · The addition and subtraction of the Social Security number! It was mandatory in the ID cards with the 2018 Government Gazette, removed in the 2023 Government Gazette
- · The information, reports, and complaints about the direct award of 100 million to Toppan and the “maintenance” deals with the Greek State
- · The Greek company in which Elias Samaras is chairman and CEO, based in Florida, USA
- · How Greece defaulted from the EU after the cancellation of tenders over €500 million and turned to the mid-term solution of the express ID cards with €100 million, in view of a new mammoth tender until 2026
- · The decision of the CoE which ruled that the expiring identity cards are valid
By Vassilis Galoupis
The Prime Minister refuted reports that he would announce the “new” identity cards in his speech at the TIF on 9 September 2023. He rushed to do so in the form of urgency through the September 1 cabinet meeting.
That same afternoon, the Ministry of Civil Protection issued a press release with 23 questions/answers on the reasons for such a measure, the critical dates, and what citizen data will be included. However, the issue of identity cards in Greece is too big, longstanding, and with enough protagonists to be closed with a simple, even explanatory, press release.
The question that the government has not answered so far is which company will undertake this project, at what cost, and what procedures. This is the same tangle of barren tenders that have plagued other governments, with the result that Greece has been outside the European Union’s deadlines since August 2, 2021, when the measure was implemented in the member states.
Both the European Union and the United States (for visa issuance) have set high passport-level security standards for European ID cards. Greece failed to meet the 2021 deadline and so, as we will present in the remainder of our research, has made additions to the citizen data that will be included in the new type of ID cards.
According to the EU’s time limits, all EU member states are obliged to use the new type of ID cards from 2026. However, with the lengthy issuing process for more than 10 million citizens starting with a long delay from September 25, 2023, all estimates converge that Greece will hardly catch the expiry date of the “old” ID cards on August 3, 2026, the date on which the “old” type document will be considered invalid throughout the EU.
Focus on Toppan
In a question in Parliament to the Minister of Civil Protection, Giannis Economou, who has not provided any response as of the publication of our investigation, the opposition party raised a number of questions on August 18, 2023.
SYRIZA MPs refer to the original tender – a mammoth amount of more than 500 million euros that was canceled twice “and seems to end up in … direct award”, as well as not a new type but “for transitional identity cards, which will be issued with rather dubious legitimacy procedures”.
The opposition speaks of a “sham extension of an existing contract for the issue of passports with a direct award of 100 million euros” and more specifically of “activating an extension of the contract for the issue of passports signed by the Ministry of Civil Protection with the Japanese company Toppan”. Reports in July also seem to refer to the company Toppan, which also has not taken a position.
A mediocre solution
According to the financial site “Power Game” in an article published on July 18, before the noise about the new ID cards broke out and while Notis Mitarakis was still in the Ministry of Civil Protection, “the first new credit card-shaped ID card is expected to be issued on the order of the new minister, thus activating the extension of the passport contract signed by the Ministry of Civil Protection with the Japanese company Toppan”.
The contract has not yet been made public, although it was signed by the previous leadership of the Ministry of Civil Protection last winter and immediately after the cancellation of a major tender for the issuance of passports worth more than 500 million euros. This tender was announced in 2019 and canceled in September 2022.
Pressure from the EU, the Ministry of Civil Protection remains neutral
According to the same publication, “the new project undertaken by Toppan Printing at the Ministry of Civil Protection, amounts to EUR 100 million. It has a duration until 2026 and is considered an interim project until the re-tender of the mammoth project of identity cards and passports”.
The Ministry of Civil Protection has not taken any position on the reports and the question submitted to Parliament. The information we have gathered for our investigation confirms this mid-term prospect of an initial direct awarding of 100 million, and then repeating the “official” major tender, which was canceled last year, in order to meet all security requirements.
The reason for this hasty solution was the constant pressure from the EU, which intensified in July. The cost of all the contracts and tenders will be borne by the citizens through the fee for issuing identity cards.
The tangle, the European decision, and the Social Security number that… resulted from the new ID cards
The procedures for “enhancing the security” of travel and identity documents were launched by the European Union on September 14, 2016. In a statement, it noted that “the Commission has underlined the critical importance of secure travel and identity documents where it is necessary to unambiguously verify the identity of a person”. At the same time, it announced that it would “present an action plan to combat travel document fraud”.
According to this Communication, “an improved approach should be based on sound systems to prevent abuses and threats to internal security”. It has since provided the outline for the use of high technology, for the storage of biometric data and the latest security standards.
On April 27, 2018, the Greek Government Gazette (SYRIZA – ANEL) decided to issue a new type of ID card, signed by Dragasakis (Minister of Economy), Pitsiorlas (Minister of Economy) and Kontonis (Minister of Justice). With reference to the fact that the provisions of this Decision entail a total expenditure of EUR 96,7 million.
According to that decision, there were safety specifications as in the current decision for the Machine Readable Zone (MRZ), the embedded non-contact electronic storage medium, as defined in ICAO document 9303. However, there was also the mandatory indication of the Social Security Number (AMKA).
On July 12, 2019, the new regulation to enhance the security of identities for EU citizens was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. As stated “in accordance with EU or national law and respecting the principles of necessity and proportionality, Member States should be able to store other data on a storage medium for electronic services or other purposes related to the identity card or residence document. The processing of such other data, including their collection and the purposes for which they may be used, should be permitted by EU or national law.”
There was an explicit reference that “ID cards that do not meet the ICAO 9303 minimum security standards or that do not include a functional MRZ shall cease to be valid on their expiry or no later than August 3, 2026” and the entry into force of the regulation was set for August 2, 2021, with the indication: “This regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in each State”.
And while no tender proceeded under either SYRIZA or ND, a significant change emerged. By a decree of the Greek government (ND) on February 17, 2023, signed by Th. Skylakakis (Minister of Finance) and T. Theodorikakos (Minister of Civil Protection), the terms of the identity cards are modified and the Social Security number is no longer included in the specifications. Something that has not been pointed out so far in public discourse, and there is no official stance.
There is, however, another amendment that goes hand in hand with the above, leaving an open window but also raising new questions. In the last paragraph of par. 4 of Article 3 has been added that “data required for eGovernment services may be stored, if it is decided to include them in this instrument’.
The two secrets
Two unknown aspects of the ID card issue are the double secrecy of the process.
By a 2019 decree, the technical specifications of the new ID card have been designated as secret. Article 1 states that “We define the specifications of the new identity card as contained in the attached B2 issue with serial No. 3125-ib΄ of 21.3.2019, “Confidential Technical Specifications of the Greek Citizen Identity Card Form”, prepared by a special committee, which is an integral part of this decision, consisting of twenty-seven (27) pages.”
The second secret we have identified has to do with tenders and is explicitly mentioned in a decision of the Council of State.
On July 7, 2022, the CoE issued its decision, following a request for annulment of the tender for the ID cards by the consortium of companies “Thales Dis France – Uni Systems” against the Minister of Civil Protection and companies that participated in the tender.
In its reasoning, the Council of State notes: “Because the contested application concerns the applicant’s participation in the tender of the Ministry of Civil Protection for the procurement of a new Integrated Information System for Security Forms. The key element of that tender, as set out below, is its confidential nature, due to the overriding public interest in safeguarding the security of the country. In view of that, in its judgment in Case 102/2022, the Court, exercising its powers under the Constitution and the law to annul the judgment in the present case, weighing, in particular, the right of the parties to effective judicial protection against the above-mentioned overriding need for the confidentiality of the proceedings, and considering that, of the elements of the case-file, which are available to it as a whole and are taken into account for the purpose of forming its judgment, some, because of their importance for the confidentiality in question, should not be exposed in its decision (vide CdE 1116/2009, 3677/2007, 4600/2005) the Court of Justice has decided that the full text of the grounds of the present judgment containing those elements should be included in the abovementioned judgment, kept confidential by the Court and available to interested parties with a specific legal interest and to the extent necessary, and that the elements found to be confidential should be deleted from the grounds of the judgment as published, marked, where necessary, with [-]’.
In another point, it is stated that “Annex A (GENERAL CONDITIONS OF THE CONTRACT PROCEDURE) of the Call for Tenders states that “1.1. The tender procedure is carried out in accordance with the Decision of the Minister of Public Order No 8028/1/34 of 27.8.2000 (B΄ 1101 and error correction B΄ 1163/20.9.2000), as in force, and does not fall within the scope of Law No. 4412/2016, subject to the provisions of this Annex, as this procurement has been declared “secret” (Article 15(3) of Law 4412/2016).”
And in another that “the existence of a state secret such as the above in a public tender implies, in principle, by the nature of the matter, a drastic restriction of fundamental rights of the governed parties involved in the procedure”.
The word “secrecy” is mentioned 68 times in the judgment.
Reactions from the Informatics Union
The Hellenic Informatics Union reacted on 28.7.2019, with an open letter to the Ministry of Civil Protection stating that “there is no scientific justification why the specifications of the system in question are considered secret. Even for national defense and critical infrastructure systems, the classified nature of some technical characteristics is considered appropriate only in very specific cases. A national electronic identity system for citizens should not only not be a “closed” system, but should instead be based on open standards, both in its development and in its operation”.
The three questions raised by the IT Association were:
- Who wants to procure an information system that manages the most critical personal data of citizens, which only the private vendor can intervene, monitor, upgrade, and maintain?
- How is it ensured that a private vendor will not thereby be allowed to have full access to the personal data of all citizens or how it is used or processed?
- If the new ID cards are to incorporate e-government processes, what is the risk assessment study on the security of citizens, such as identity theft through malfunctioning or a security ‘hole’ such as the one found in Estonia?
The letter is signed by the entire Board of Directors of the Association, with Dimitris Kyriakos as Chairman.
Are ID cards invalid when they expire?
One of the points of high interest has to do with the expiry of an ID card, which until now has been set at 15 years and from now on will be 10 years. However, in decision 1602 of 2021, the CoE has ruled that “if 15 years have elapsed since the expiry of the identity card and until it is replaced, it is considered a valid document and the competent authorities must accept it if there is no reasonable doubt about its authenticity”.
The ruling of the Council of State concerns a citizen who wanted to issue a passport and the police refused to issue it since his identity card had expired and was more than 15 years old. The citizen appealed to the Council of State against the refusal of the police.
The hearing took place on June 1, 2021, with the following composition: M. Karamanov, Vice President, President of the 4th department, El. Mazos, O. Papadopoulos, Counsellors, Chr. Bolofis, I. Michalakopoulos, Examiners. Secretary I. Papacharalambous, Secretary of the Fourth Department.
The Council of State accepted the citizen’s application and by decision annulled “the decision 3021/22/113/9811-b΄/19.12.2018 of the Head of the Security Branch of the Hellenic Police Headquarters”, imposing on the State “the legal costs of the applicant, which amount to nine hundred and twenty (920) euros”.
The “King of Passports”
The proposal that was finally reportedly approved by the government concerns the extension of the contract with the Japanese company Toppan, whose “strong card” in Greece is Elias Samaras, president and CEO of Digital Security Technologies. Toppan is the same company that has been in charge of the passport project in Greece for several years.
In one of the several tenders that did not go ahead for ID cards, Toppan also participated. Specifically, in May 2021 it was announced that three of the five consortia that submitted bids for the new ID cards had passed to the next phase of the large tender, worth €515 million.
It was about the joint ventures: “OTE-Veridos Matsoukis-Byte”, “Thales-Unisystems-Toppan” and “Zetes – Space Hellas-Any”. The groups “Idemia – Neurosoft’ and ‘Inform -IN Groupe-French National Printing House” were excluded.
Subsequently, however, Thales and Unisystems became independent and acted on their own, bringing a joint action before the CoE. Those in the know claimed at the time that there were business considerations behind the consortium’s appeal. As we know, this tender was also canceled.
Elias Samaras has for years been called “the king of passports”, with a reach that goes beyond Greek borders. He is considered to have been one of the first to contribute to the creation of passports with a high-security index.
He was born in Dios Street in Nea Dimitriada of Volos and his two brothers ran a convenience store at the junction of Ermou and Topali. In 1973 he entered the National Technical University of Athens and graduated first in the School of Civil Engineering. He did postgraduate studies at MIT, USA, where he completed his studies on a scholarship, and then at Harvard.
In 1993, a landmark year for him, he invented the high-security printing system “DIG PHOTO PRINTING TECHNOLOGY”, which attracted the interest of the Japanese multinational Toppan.
“I will quote some numbers. Prior to the implementation of our method, through our company Thermo Digital Technology, in the United States, 7,500,000 passports were printed annually and about 15,000 counterfeit passports were detected annually, enough for all the criminals to obtain. Unfortunately, of the ten fake passports circulating in Europe, nine had the details of the Hellenic Republic on them. Today, with the implementation of our system, 180,000,000 passports have been printed worldwide, mainly in the USA, and about 2,500,000 passports in Greece, without any forged passports being detected,” he said in 2011.
In 1993 he founded Thermo Digital Technology, based in Boston, and presented the new printer for the US digital passport to the US State Department. As he said in 2011, “Greek passports are printed by the Passport Directorate using our own technology in a state-of-the-art center, perhaps the best in Europe, built by our parent company Toppan.”
In 2010, he met with the then Prime Minister George Papandreou and discussed the issuance of a Citizen’s Card, a project that succeeded no further. He had responded to the concerns about the profiling of citizens: “Those who are worried about the profiling of citizens are very late to worry. They got a file on everybody and not only by government agencies but even by private companies in several ways.”
Samaras is president and CEO of the Hellenic Company Digital Security Technologies SA and was also a UN adviser on technology issues (1983-1993).
The announcement of the Ministry of Public Order in 2006
One of the first times he was on the media radar was in 2006. On April 14 of that year, the Ministry of Public Order was forced to issue a statement following reports:
“Regarding today’s daily newspaper publication referring to the process of supply and installation of the printing machines for the new passports, by the Ministry of Public Order and the HQ of the Hellenic Police, the following is announced:
- On 01-01-2006 the Hellenic Police started issuing passports to Greek citizens.
- For the implementation of the above Law, an open international tender was launched on 26-08-2003, in which three (3) companies participated, with a budget of 9.100.000 Euro. On 15-10-2004 the contract was signed for a total amount of 8.837.000 Euro. According to a clause in the signed contract, the printing system of the supplier company would have the possibility of introducing biometric data in the future.
- On 29-12-2004 the Council of the European Union Regulation (2252/2004) was published, which introduced biometrics (effective 28-08-2006).
- Following this, by a relevant Decision (59/1-12-2005) of the Deputy Minister of Public Order, it was decided to upgrade or replace, without charge (free of cost), the existing passport printing system, the supply of consumables and the passport cover with integrated electronic microprocessor (chip) by the manufacturer “TOPPAN PRINTING CO LTD”.
- By a subsequent decision (3/26-1-2006) of the Minister of Public Order, the said parent company TOPPAN was awarded the contract for the upgrade of the system with the replacement of the printing machines, the supply of consumables, the supply of the passport cover with integrated electronic microprocessor (chip) and the maintenance of the printing systems.
- The most modern machines were provided at no cost to the Greek state, which will be installed by the end of July this year, in order to start issuing passports with a microprocessor (chip) by 28-08-06, in which the photo and part of the data written on the pages of the passport will be recorded, in accordance with the EU Regulation.
- The already operating machines will be uninstalled and placed in another area of the Hellenic Police and will be upgraded (in software) free of charge by the parent company TOPPAN, in order to be used for educational purposes or other necessary uses, except for the issuance of passports.
- The production of the passport form is being carried out at the request of the Bank of Greece, which, as we know, is technically preparing for the issuing – production of the electronic passport form.
Business with the Greek State
The company “Digital Security” has existed normally until today, according to the General Registry of Commerce and Industry, with the distinctive title “DS Technologies AE”.
On July 21, 2023, the last resolution of the General Meeting of the company was registered in the General Commercial Register.
The official document shows Elias Samaras of Francis, who resides in Florida, USA, to be the company’s president and CEO. There are three other members, Vasiliki Lampropoulou (resident of Peania), Francis Samaras of Constantine (resident of Nicosia), and Alexandra Papageorgiou (resident of Florida).
As stated “the Board of Directors grants all its rights defined by the company’s Articles of Association and the Law to its President and CEO, Mr. Samaras Elias of Francis, and at the same time authorizes him to represent the company, binding it each time with his signature alone, which must always and only be placed under the company’s name or on the seal bearing the company’s name”.
Toppan appears quite frequently on the “Diavgeia” website. On one of these occasions, on 30 December 2016, a decision was issued by the Ministry of Interior and the Hellenic Police Headquarters for a “unilateral extension of the maintenance services of the printing system for issuing certificates (passports) of our contract with court no. 3/2006, as in force – Adjustment of this price (maintenance), during the period from 1.1.2017 to 14.5.2017”.
As stated “in accordance with Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No. 3/2006 the following are defined: “The supplier undertakes for all the offered equipment (Hardware), the obligation to provide initial maintenance services for a period of at least ten (10) years (Page 4 of 5 of No. 8030/33/2/7). The period of ten (10) years shall commence on the day following the date of final acceptance. For the first three (3) years, maintenance will be provided at no cost to the Purchaser (as a guarantee of good working order). The initial ten-year maintenance period may be extended, under the same terms and conditions, upon unilateral declaration by the Purchaser for the entire period of time that the equipment is used.”
By order:
- “We extend, unilaterally and in accordance with Article 16 of Order No. 3/2006 contract of the AEA with the company “TOPPAN PRINTING Co Ltd”, the duration of the provision, by the said company, of the maintenance services of the printing system for issuing certificates (passports) of the Order No. 3/2006 contract, for the period from 1.1.2017 to 14.5.2017.
- We maintain the price for the maintenance of the printing system of the contract in question, for the period from 1.1.2017 to 14.5.2017, as it was in force during the previous calendar year (from 1.1.2016 to 31.12.2016), i.e. 12.158,48 euros per month, including statutory deductions in favor of beneficiary bodies, excluding VAT, and we do not adjust it in accordance with article 18 of contract with Order No. 3/2006.
- The said maintenance costs shall be paid, accrued quarterly, and shall be charged to the appropriations of E.F. 07-410 ”HELLENIC POLICE” and to KAE – 0869. 4. In all other respects and as far as maintenance is concerned, the contract of the Hellenic Police Headquarters No. 3/2006, as amended by the additional acts No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4, applies.
THE DIRECTOR
ANASTASIOS MANIATIS BRIGADIER GENERAL’.
Toppan Hellas is located in Kaesariani, specifically at 47 Formionos Street and 63 Ymittou Street.
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