Kazakhstan to add fingerprinting to citizens’ passports from 2024

Starting from January 1 next year, compulsory fingerprinting will be added to the passport and ID card chip of Kazakh citizens. There will be no need to replace personal documents issued before the law becomes effective, as they are valid until the expiry date. The Kazakh Interior Ministry noted that fingerprint registration in public service centers will be carried out free of charge and will take ten minutes at most. Kazakh citizens, foreign nationals and stateless persons will have their fingerprints taken and added to ID chips.

“Persons with physical disabilities, such as missing all fingers on both hands or missing papillary patterns on the distal phalanges of all fingers on both hands, are exempted from undergoing fingerprint registration. In general, the dactyloscopy procedure is carried out once. It may be delayed due to hand mutilations or wounds. Biometric documents will allow to create and introduce a biometric identification system, prevent document falsification, improve security measures in the context of increased terrorist threats, and successfully meet the crime-fighting challenges,” said Aigul Kanlybayeva, senior special inspector of the Migration Service Committee at the Kazakh Interior Ministry.

The ministry has recently updated the rules for processing personal documents. The ID card will now include the full name, date and birth place, gender, date of issue, number and validity of the document, signature of the owner, individual identification number and fingerprinting. As regards the nationality, a citizen is entitled to choose whether to indicate it or leave blank.