Jamaica’s passport agency to start issuing E-passports

The Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA)  has announced that it will begin issuing a new high-security electronic or E-passports document to the public on March 31.

According to  PICA, it has been taking steps over the years to secure Jamaica’s passports as part of its efforts to safeguard the identity of Jamaicans and the Jamaican travel document, and the E-passport is the latest initiative in that regard.

“As the agency goes through its process of upgrading its passport system by providing a better quality product, it wishes to reassure the public that the passports that have been previously issued are still valid until the date of expiration and there is no need to change them. Please note that there will be no increase in fees,” PICA said in a statement on Friday.

An E-passport is an electronic machine-readable passport with an embedded microchip that stores a digital version of the holder’s biographical data.

The chip has a unique digital signature, specific to each issuing country and is activated once the chip is encoded.

The E-passports is a robust biometric document with added layers of security that can aid in the fight against new and emerging threats to identity theft and national security.

CMC/