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ny’s history. It also issued three profit warnings in four months, with shares slumping 20 per cent and to their lowest level in more than five years last summer.

Ian Mearns, the MP for Gateshead, said: ‘The Government need to look at the underpinning values of the companies involved who are tendering to produce a precious item like the British passport.

It came as experts told how vulnerabilities were found in products supplied by Gemalto, putting them at risk to hackers. More than 14 vulnerabilities were found in software it provides mostly to businesses, known as licensing management systems, which act as a type of product key to ensure software is being used legally.

Vladimir Daschenko, head of the vulnerability research team at Kaspersky Lab, said the Sentinel LDK product in particular was vulnerable.

He told the Mail: ‘Frankly speaking, we were surprised by some of the vulnerabilities when we started researching how popular this solution is... a lot of different companies are using this Gemalto licensing system.’ He said that, in theory, it meant hackers could access and steal sensitive personal information businesses hold on their clients.

Regarding pay, a Gemalto spokesman said: ‘The board of directors determines the CEO’s compensation in accordance with the remuneration policy approved by shareholders.’

He added: ‘Based on the feedback from Kaspersky, we are evaluating our customer communication mechanisms to enhance the efficacy of future security bulletins to ensure our customers receive the updates in a timely manner.’