'Non-machine readable passports to remain valid till expiry date'

Old passports that are non-machine readable would remain valid till their expiry date, Wajid Ali Bokhari, Director General of Immigration and Passports DGIP) said, here on Saturday. The pilot project for issuing Machine Readable Passports (MRPs) began in January 2005 and during this six years period there are only a handful of the old ones left, Bokhari said while talking to Business Recorder.
"Pakistani missions abroad are still issuing manual passports and these passports are also valid till the time of their expiry date," Bokhari said, adding that as the entire world has moved towards digital system we are also heading towards e-government.
Immigration and Passports department has so far issued over 10 million passports and thousands are in process, he said, adding that people are coming for MRPs as now the foreign missions are also demanding MRPs for visa. He said that Saudi Arabia has also put the condition of MRP for Hajj pilgrims.
He said despite introduction of MRP, the old passports are still acceptable by most countries including the US, the UK and European countries because they have parallel systems to check both MRPs and manual travel documents at their airports.
They still have the parallel system given that the process of switching over to MRPs from old manual passports takes more than two to three years, he added. With the issuance of MRP Pakistan has become the first country in the world to issue a passport using both the Automated Finger Identification and Facial Recognition system. Pakistan is also one of a few countries to use the existing name, photograph, signature etc of the applicant directly from the Computerised National Identity Card Database for the passport. This will completely eliminate issuance of passports by fraudulent means.