7% of Kuwait residents miss biometric registration deadline, face service freeze

Around 244,000 Kuwaiti expatriates are facing a block to their government and banking transactions after failing to submit their fingerprint biometrics before the deadline which ended on the last day of December, 2024.

Aside from the expatriates, around 16,000 Kuwaitis and 90,000 Bedoons or stateless people have also missed deadlines for handing over their biometric data as part of the government program to build a national database. This puts the total number of people who failed to perform mandatory fingerprinting near 350,000, as reported by Gulf News.

The unregistered numbers are relatively small considering the speed at which the ministry has completed the fingerprinting, according to the Director of the General Department of Criminal Evidence, Major General Eid Al-Owihan. The agency has so far registered 960,000 citizens as well as around 76 percent of expatriates.

The Gulf state launched the fingerprint registration exercise in March last year with an aim to enhance security and tackle the large number of people with dual nationalities: Kuwait’s population of 4.9 million has around 3.3 million foreigners, many of whom hold dual citizenship or are residing in the country on temporary work visas. Submitting fingerprints is obligatory for people aged 18 or above.

Despite deadline extensions, around 60,000 Kuwaiti nationals missed their deadline to submit their biometrics on September 30th, with the Kuwait Banking Association initiating the process of freezing accounts.

A similar fate is now expected for expatriates who have missed the December 31st deadline. Aside from banking transactions, expats may face restrictions when renewing residence permits. Authorities, however, have denied that there would be fines for those who have failed to submit the biometric data.

Article Topics

biometric enrollment  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  financial services  |  government services  |  Kuwait  |  Middle East