Public Register of Travel and Identity Documents Online

PRADO - The Council of the European Union Public Register of Authentic Travel and Identity Documents Online

PRADO contains technical descriptions, including information on some of the most important security features of identity and travel documents of countries within the European Union, all Schengen Area countries, of other neighbouring countries as well as of many third countries worldwide.

With Council Joint Action 98/700/JHA from 3 December 1998 the European Image Archiving System "FADO" (False and Authentic Documents Online) was set up. The first part of the system, "Expert FADO", went online at the end of 2004 for secure communication among document experts. In 2007, iFADO and PRADO were released. iFADO (intranet FADO), contains the most important information from "Expert FADO" for access restricted, governmental use, while in PRADO a small subset of this information is published for the general public.

PRADO is hosted by the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union (GSC), Directorate General for Justice and Home Affairs (DGD 1A).

PRADO contains basic technical descriptions, including information on security features, of authentic identity and travel documents. The information is selected and provided by document experts in the member states of the European Union (EU), Iceland, Norway and Switzerland; part of the information contained in the classified, restricted "Expert FADO" system is made publicly available via the PRADO pages. The steerring committee in the Council of the European Union is currently the Working Party on Frontiers in the formation of False Documents Experts.

The travel and identity documents are categorised as follows:

Document categories:

Document types:

Document types of civil status documents:

Information on practically all important documents of all EU and Schengen countries is present. The overall number of described documents of third countries however differs widely from country to country (information is added every week).

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