Smart ID card project for expats wrapped up

LONDON: The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has wrapped up its plan for issuing Smart Identity Card to overseas Pakistanis after foreign office and country’s security apparatus expressed strong reservations over the project, Geo News reported Saturday.

The Smart ID cards were to be issued to overseas Pakistanis through Smart Card International.

Sources said, initially the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), country’s principal spy service, had nodded its approval for the project but latter it expressed reservations over the project and some people, inducted by the authorities to materialize the plan.

The sources said the foreign office and Pakistan High Commissioner to London Shamsul Hasan also opposed the project and informed President Asif Ali Zardari about his reservations.

They said that security agencies feared leakage of sensitive information of Pakistani citizens due to handling of the issue by a foreign company.

In July 2012, NADRA chairman Tariq Malik had visited UK and other European countries to materialize the project following directives by Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

The sources added that following the decision to end the project, overseas Pakistanis would now get their ID card from Pakistan embassies in their respective countries.