Kenya's e-passport will replace the current passport by 2019.
Kenya is set to phase out all current passports and replace them with electronic ones by 2019. The Immigration Department will start processing and issuing the new passport, starting September 1, 2017. The passport will have an electronic chip with the owner's details.
Citizens are advised to apply for the new electronic passports and return their current ones. It will take ten working days for applicants to receive the new electronic passport.
"The new passport that we have launched puts us in a new league, we are going to have a secure, reliable, trackable document for movement and for travel across East Africa as well as across the world", said Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi.
To get the e-passport, applicants will be required to apply for a replacement passport and return their current ones.
“Our departments are coming together and you can see that we are stepping on to a modern digital platform of managing identification and information of our citizens, said Matiangi.
The digital passports are expected to provide travellers with benefits such as using automated border clearance, automated issuance of boarding passes, and faster travel arrangements with all airports across the world where e-passport reader equipment is in use according to the government.
The electronic passports conform to international security standards that require all of them to contain a tamper-proof electronic chip that carries a holder's information and travel history.
The smart passport will phase out the East African passport as well as individual passports issued to EAC bloc member states of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda to their citizens.
Kenya is the second EAC State to launch the e-passport after Burundi. All member states are required to do so by December 31 next year.
The charges for the new passport remain the same as the current.
Applications can be done online through the e-citizen platform but applicants will be required to present themselves in person for biometric capture at the passport issuing offices in Kisumu, Mombasa and Nairobi.
Edited by Fundisiwe Maseko
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