The Minister for National Security, Rayburn Blackmoore, has announced the extension of the transition to EU e-passports from August 31 to December 31, 2022. Rayburn said a total of 31,347 e-passports have been printed and issued to Dominicans since the government launched the initiative in July 2021. He said machine-readable passports will be phased out in favour of the new e-passports.
According to the minister, the government invested over US$6 million into an issuing system to produce the e-passport which contains the biometric details of recipients. He said the new passport contains an electronic chip with facial recognition capabilities, 50 pages (instead of the former 32 pages) engraved with laser and are water-resistant, and other biometric data.
Blackburn further revealed that the government deployed mobile kits to capture the data of Dominicans in other countries before issuing their e-passports. He disclosed that 290 e-passports were processed for Dominicans in St. Maarten, 191 for those in St. Thomas, and 161 for those in St. Croix and St. John among others. He added that the new passports will meet the travel and security needs of Dominicans at home and abroad. He stated that the extension to December is to enable Dominicans to avail themselves of the opportunity to apply for the new E-passports. He said the government extended the transition period in response to the requests and challenges of Dominicans. He clarified that this will be the last time the government will be extending the deadline for the benefits of all and sundry.
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