Africa-Press – Angola. The Ministry of Interior presented on Tuesday in Luanda, the model of the Angolan electronic passport, in a ceremony led by the head of the incumbent minister Manuel Homem.
In the first stage, the passport will only be issued to citizens who are applying for a passport for the first time.
During the event, models of normal, service, diplomatic, foreign, and travel passports were presented, all equipped with an electronic chip that integrates biometric data, such as fingerprints, photograph, allowing digital validation at international borders.
The Minister of the Interior stated that Angola has taken a decisive step in modernizing its travel documents with the introduction of the electronic passport, an initiative that reinforces the security of citizens and aligns the country with international standards defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
According to Manuel Homem, the adoption of the new document meets global demands in the field of traveler authentication and places Angola among the more than 100 countries that already use electronic passports.
The official explained that this modernization corrects a nonconformity previously identified by the ICAO and gives greater credibility to the Angolan passport abroad, facilitating the movement of citizens in countries with electronic verification systems.
He added that, in addition to the external impact, the measure brings internal gains to the Migration and Foreigners Service (SME), which will now operate with more modern technology, greater production capacity, and greater agility in issuing
In this initial stage, only citizens over 18 years of age who are applying for a passport for the first time will have access to the new document, excluding, for now, situations of renewal, loss or expiration, a phase that should last about 45 days.
For issuance purposes, he reiterated that the passport application continues to be made exclusively online, through the official SME portal (www.sme.gov.ao), without the use of intermediaries, that is, the citizen registers and completes the digital procedures and goes to the station only for the in-person phase.
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