e-Passport Challenges

THE Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, faces the teething problems of change, as it moves from the outdated manual manner in which it has conducted its affairs into the electronic sphere.

Nowhere has the challenges manifested more than the issuance of the electronic passport, the new travel document that would restore the dignity of the Nigerian traveler.

The only business many Nigerians have with the NIS is over passports, unless they are business people, who require expatriate quotas for their organisations. Passport administration is the ultimate platform Nigerians use to judge the NIS .

The transition from the machine readable passports, currently in use, to e-passports has been fraught with many speculations, resulting mostly from the fact that the NIS did not have the resources to handle the deluge of demands for the e-passports once they were introduced.

A logjam resulted which the NIS has managed by opening more e-passport centres (more are planned) and extending the date for phasing out the old passports to 2010.

Yet, the NIS deserves commendation for introducing the technologically advanced e-passport, which adequately tackles the problems of multiple applications, passport thefts and fake passports. Every passport captures the personal data of the applicant, in addition to storing these in a central data base, which raises an alarm if the same applicants make fresh applications for passports.

The central data base is one of the new dimensions of the e-passport.

Personal data are electronically embedded in the passport and are invisible to the eye. The appropriate reading machine deciphers the date. Pages of the e-passport are tamper-proof, unlike the easily forged machine readable passports that are being phased out. If for any reasons someone is able to replace the pages, the machines can detect the fraud.

The challenges of the e-passport include the capacity of the NIS to make them available to millions of travellers who immediately want to be beneficiaries of the better treatment its holders get abroad. The NIS ’ insistence on online applications has been criticised as out of touch with the country’s literacy level and availability of information technology facilities.

NIS admits these challenges. It is sticking to online application because it enhances the fidelity of the process, captures revenue promptly, and leaves no room for the racketeering and touting that were associated with passport administration.

The NIS argues that since all arrangements for international travels (ticketing, inoculations and visas) are conducted in the urban areas, e-passport applicants would not bear any extraordinary burdens.

As the NIS grapples with the challenges of modernising its operations, including more effective policing of the borders, electronic recruitment and pay roll, its successes are sterling examples of better ways of conducting even government business.

Governments should align their processes to the information age for global compatibility and relevance.