Biometric passports: launch on 1 November, and passport number 0000001 will cost a lot
- Published
- Place
- Yerevan and provinces, Armenia
- Event date
- Upcoming event —
Summary
Armenia starts issuing its new biometric passports and identity cards on 1 November, designed to European Union standards with the private partner HayPass, which works with France’s IN Groupe. On 31 October, Nikol Pashinyan attended the opening of the HayPass office at the Yerevan Mall shopping centre and submitted his own biometric data there. Interior Minister Arpine Sargsyan explains that applications will start online: a check against the population register, payment in advance, then a QR code sent by email. At the office, applicants will only need to give fingerprints and be photographed. Fourteen offices are planned in Yerevan and the ten provinces. The government also decided that the passport numbered 0000001 will be issued for a high extra fee.
Analysis
Asked about passport number 0000001, Nikol Pashinyan hesitated between a fixed price and an auction, before saying “why not take advantage” if demand is strong; the proceeds would go to the passport system. The new document remains contested: critics object to the absence of Mount Ararat from one image and to “Azerbaijan” being listed as the place of birth for everyone born in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Possible consequences
Valid passports and ID cards remain usable until they expire; applying for the new document means handing in the old ones. The government is preparing contactless border crossing without a border guard, starting at Zvartnots airport, and presents the system as important for visa liberalisation with the EU.
What remains uncertain
Fees for the new documents and the price of passport number 0000001 have not been announced. The timetable for automatic border gates is not specified. Office capacity in the first days, and the effect of the planned reduction in state service counters by the end of 2027, remain to be seen.
