By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

The government will introduce a new passport, on which the holder’s photograph will be directly printed, as early as November this year.

The Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry on Wednesday explained its plan for the new feature, which it expected would drastically thwart forgery or falsification of passports.

Instead of being affixed and laminated onto the page, the photos will be printed through a digital printing process, which uses a laser or chemical treatment, the ministry said.

``The ministry’s passport department and Seoul’s Chongno-gu ward office will begin issuing the new passports on a trial basis in November,’’ Kim Wook, director general with the Foreign Ministry’s Overseas Residents and Consular Affairs Bureau. ``The service will then be expanded to other passport issuance agencies in Seoul in January and provincial regions next June.’’

Kim added the country’s passport issuance system move toward a biotechnology-based one in the future will also be established through the suggested plan.

Consortiums led by Samsung SDS and LG CNS held presentations at the ministry to win the contract for the new passport issuance system. The ministry plans to select a preferred bidder by the end of this month.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr