On June 23 President Karimov signed the decree on introduction of biometric data passports in the country as of January 1, 2010.

The biometric data passports are introduced with the purpose of raising their security level, development of mechanisms for prompt and exact personal identification at crossing the state border, ensuring the safety of international civil aerial navigation and effectiveness of international avia transport.

As Ferghana.ru informs, the passports of people, working for ministries, authorities and institutions and going abroad or residing outside of the country will be exchanged during 2010. This category of people also includes the citizens, picking up their passports at lawful age or other basis, assumed by the law. Other citizens are of the country are going to receive their passports at the second phase (2011-2015).

Besides, the government is planning to establish special State personalization center under the Cabinet council for centralized production and accounting of biometric passports and their time provision to the population. It will be located at the territory of the biometric passports producer – Davlat belgisi (State Emblem) Production Company, owned by Central Bank.

Among other problems Uzbek citizens may face the main one is the situation with remaining corrupted officers of OVIR of the interior ministry: nobodu can guarantee that this time they are out of their everyday business. On the other hand, the government has 5-6 years to spread its control over that division of the ministry to finally ensure citizen that we are building crruption-free and laws-in-action society.

Today, the passports with biometric data, produced with the use of modern technologies, are introduced in more than 100 countries of the world, including Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

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The application of biometric passports is recommended by Chicago convention on international civil aviation (December of 1944) and decision (resolution) of Montreal Assembly of International civil aviation organization (ICAO), dated 2004. The ICAO member states should organize the distribution of civil passports, containing electronic information on personal biometric data and setup data of their owners and having high security level.

To see the Uzbek passport follow here please.