ICAO and the Latin American Civil Aviation Commission (LACAC), with the support of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE) of the Organization of American States (OAS), and the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), will hold the first ICAO/LACAC Regional Seminar on Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs), Biometrics and Security Standards for the Americas in Montevideo, Uruguay, from 7 to 8 July 2010 at the Montevideo Holiday Inn.

The event is designed to highlight the relevance of ICAO’s MRTD Programme to a key provision [2(g)] in Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001) which obliges UN Member States to “prevent the movement of terrorists or terrorist groups by effective border controls and controls on issuance of identity papers and travel documents, and through measures for preventing counterfeiting, forgery or fraudulent use of identity papers and travel documents”, as well as to emphasize the fact that complying with ICAO’s MRTD standards is tantamount to complying with this provision of the resolution.

An exhibition will complement the Seminar and will serve to highlight important products and services related to MRTDs, biometric identification, security applications and border inspection systems.

Who should attend

The Seminar will be of particular interest to officials in charge of establishing national security policies, 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. Officials from airlines and airports involved in passenger service systems, handling of travel documents, facilitation and aviation security will also greatly benefit from attending the event.