Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced the launch of a pilot project for Passport Seva Project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) in two Indian cities – Chandigarh and Bangalore.
The Government of Switzerland would be introducing biometric identity Identity Cards by the year 2010. The cards will be electronically encoded with photo and fingerprints.
The Finance Minister of India P Chidambaram stated that biometric Permanent Account Number (PAN) cards will be introduced to the income tax payers of the country. In the first phase, these will be issued to new applicants.
In what can be termed as a gift for people of Maldives, the national registration of Maldives has announced that all new ID cards to be issued from now would be made available to citizens for free.
e-Passports that have been made available in France since April 2006 will be gradually replaced by Biometric passports containing a digital photo and the fingerprints of their holders.
In an effort to check misuse of passports in the present format, e-Passports carrying biometric information in a chip will be introduced by the Government of India.
The Indian Embassy in Doha has introduced machine readable passports (MRPs) in consonance with the guidelines issued by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). The new document is machine printed and machine-readable.
The German Home Office has issued a new electronic identity card for German citizens that will incorporate the use of pseudonyms for secure web access. According to the plans of the German Home Office, a credit card sized electronic identity card will be introduced in 2009.
After introducing a biometric card in the country, the UAE Government is bringing e-Voting and e-Elections to move one step towards e-Governance.
Qatar government to issue smart identity cards to the residents either later this year or in early 2009. These cards would enable the residents to apply for work permits online.
