New Document Issues

Two new document issues to report this month.

Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s New ePassport

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s new ePassport was issued on 16 July at a ceremony in the regional capital of Erbil.

The Iraqi head of the Citizenship Directorate along with the Erbil governor and other local officials inaugurated the new system for issuing the travel document, which contains a smart chip that stores the passport holder’s key information. The new system is in line with the Kurdistan Region’s efforts to digitise the public service provisions, Governor Khoshnaw said.

Earlier this year, the Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani inaugurated the Iraqi electronic passport in Baghdad.

There are four different passport types: regular (dark blue cover), diplomatic (ruby), service (dark red) and (dark green).

The data page of the passport contains the normal set of information carried on a travel document including place and date of birth, date of issue and expiry and issuing authority.

Front cover of regular Iraqi ePassport.

The data page has a 2-line machine readable zone in accordance with ICAO standard 9303 and the country code is IRQ.

DRC New ID Card

The launch of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s new national identity card took place at a ceremony in Kinshasa on 30 June. Prior to the ceremony, there was the pooling of personally identifiable data by ONIP (National Office for Population Identification), INS (National Institute of Statistics) and CENI, the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The last time the Congolese state issued new identity cards to citizens was in 1984. In 1987, there was an attempt to issue ID cards in the capital Kinshasa, but the operation was not completed.

President Félix Tshisekedi National ID Card.