GPO To Open Passport Printing Plant

The U.S. Government Printing Office is set to open an 80,000-sq.ft. passport printing facility on the grounds of the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and hire 50 employees to staff it. The passport facility is GPO's second.

The GPO has also responded to a report by the Washington Times questioning its use of foreign firms in the production of e-passports. GPO says it contracted with two European companies—vetted by both GPO and the State Dept.—to produce and insert computer chips in blank passports, with a wire radio antenna assembled and fitted at a plant in Thailand. GPO says when it conducted the RFP for the chips—in coordination with the U.S. intelligence community—there were no U.S. companies that could produce the “biometric” parts that met International Civil Aviation Organization standards.