ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to phase out machine-readable passports and switch fully to e-passports, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi announced on Friday, saying the move will offer advanced security, global compatibility and a seamless airport experience.<\/p>\n
Chairing a special meeting at the Passport and Immigration Headquarters, Naqvi said the complete transition would eliminate fraud and forgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe complete transition to e-passports will end fraud and forgery related to passports,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Director General Passports and Immigration Muhammad Ali Randhawa briefed the minister on the reforms. The meeting approved in principle to shift to e-passports, though no cutoff date for phasing out old passports was set.<\/p>\n
An e-Passport is a highly secure travel document with an electronic chip embedded in one of its pages. The contactless NFC chip securely stores biometric data, facial details, biographical information, a unique identification number and a digital signature. The chip allows border control and smart devices to read data wirelessly.<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s e-passports are compliant with the International Civil Aviation Organisation\u2019s standards. Pakistani e-passport holders will be able to use e-gate facilities at airports worldwide, reducing immigration queues.<\/p>\n
The meeting held on Friday also decided that all passport offices will move to a cashless payment system from July 1, ending manual cash handling at banks.<\/p>\n
Randhawa informed the meeting that initial work on the home delivery of passports for citizens in Pakistan and abroad had been completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe process of providing passports at citizens\u2019 doorsteps will start soon,\u201d Naqvi said.<\/p>\n
The Pak ID platform will be available to online passport applicants to streamline submissions and cut processing time.<\/p>\n
Naqvi directed that the policy for business passports be finalised at the earliest in consultation with the Federal Board of Revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to phase out machine-readable passports and switch fully to e-passports, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi announced on Friday, saying the move will offer advanced security, global compatibility and a seamless airport experience. Chairing a special meeting at the Passport and Immigration Headquarters, Naqvi said the complete transition would eliminate fraud and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18561,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18559\/revisions\/18561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}