Qatar's electronic passport slated for April

The Middle Eastern State of Qatar has indicated that it will launch a biometric-based electronic passport from April this year, upgrading its existing machine readable document, which it claims is one of the best 20 in the world in terms of security features and quality of paper and printing.

The details were revealed by Captain Mohamed Al Sulaiti during the inauguration of a new passport facility at the country’s Nationality and Passport Office. (The facility comprises four fully computerised passport personalisation machines, which were installed at a cost of more than QAR 7 million (US$1.9 million).

According to local reports, the new passport will have images of Qatari heritage sites.

Al Sulaiti revealed that there were also plans to issue a smart card-based ID card to nationals from April.

 

* SDW is currently attempting to source further details on the new passport and ID card and will update this story as soon as they become available.