Overview
- Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi chaired a high-level meeting that approved in principle the complete transition to e-passports on Friday, June 19.
- All passport offices will start operating cashless payments from July 1 as part of immediate operational changes to reduce manual handling and boost transparency.
- Online passport applications will be migrated to the Pak-ID platform to centralize identity checks and to link issuance with national digital identity records.
- Preparatory work for home delivery of passports inside Pakistan and at missions abroad is complete and the service is expected to launch soon, while a business-passport policy will be finalised with the Federal Board of Revenue.
- Officials say e-passports will carry an embedded contactless NFC chip that stores biometric and personal data to meet ICAO standards and will be overseen by the SHIKRA monitoring system launched earlier this year.