GUYANESE will soon be issued biometric passports (e-passports) and equipment at all of the country’s major airports will be upgraded to read them.

Speaking at the ongoing National Toshaos Council (NTC) Conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Minister of Citizenship, Winston Felix, explained that issuance of the new epassports is expected to begin late next year.

“Our passport stock is timed to end in July [2020] so everything is timed to come in place at the end of the current passport supply that we have,” Felix said while nothing that the Ministry of Citizenship is also scheduled to receive 10 new kiosks.

“We have to change all the equipment and all of that is arranged along with the 10 kiosks. It’s a part of the contractual arrangement. All the equipment at Cheddi Jagan [International Airport], Ogle, all have to be changed to accommodate the new passports, plus the 10 new kiosks,” he said.

The e-passports are machine readable. They include a chip on the cover which contains the bio data of the passport holder, and can be used at the automated e-passport gates.
“That carries a second storage of your bio data so that anybody who might tamper with the machine readable part you can resort to reading the information off of that,” Felix explained.

He told the Indigenous leaders that soon all passports will be e-passports.
“It is being consistent with what is happening internationally. I have been told that in a short period of time, all countries will have to become compliant with the e-passports so we don’t have an option not to do it; we have to do it because we will be left behind and our passport would not be accepted. It is for us to move with the times, it is an international requirement and we just have to meet our international obligations,” Felix said.

The e-passports are designed to increase security, making it more difficult to change data recorded on them and therefore limiting the chances of fraud.
The e-passports are not expected to significantly affect the cost of obtaining a passport. The price of the passport is expecting to remain the same but the number of pages will increase from 32 to 48.

During his discussions, Felix also addressed issues of birth registration and citizenship by naturalisation, descent and marriage.

He stressed that anyone born outside of Guyana cannot be issued a Guyanese birth certificate but once the parents are Guyanese, the child will be given citizenship by descent. However, the birth certificate form the country of birth would be necessary.

The case of fake birth certificates surfacing in Indigenous villages was also raised and Felix noted that persons need not be afraid to come forward and report these matters. It is the person who issued the birth certificate and not the holder of the birth certificate who would be at risk, he said.