Afghanistan to open more digital ID centers as issuance passes 15M

Afghanistan’s National Information and Statistics Authority (NSIA) says it is in the process of opening up more centers for the issuance of the national digital ID known as e-Tazkiras as issuance figures keep climbing.

The Authority said on January 15 that it has been working to set up such centers at district level and to equip them with the facilities needed for the fluid issuance of the important document.

The e-Tazkiras is the digital version of the Afghan national ID card. It has a high preference among users as it is considered more secure and easier to use for access to services than the physical cards.

NSIA says the latest figures indicate that more than 15 million people are now in possession of their e-Tazkiras since the distribution process commenced.

Of the 15,018,000 digital IDs, 9,067,000 of them have been issued to males while 5,952,000 are distributed to females. Kabul has the highest number of distributed cards (6,225,000), with more one million in Herat, and 765,000 in Nangarhar.

When created, the new e-Tazkiras centers will add to the 73 existing digital ID and Asan Khedmat one-stop shop distribution centers which currently offer services to applicants on a daily basis.

To facilitate digital ID issuance, NSIA says it has been dispatching mobile teams to the field to different localities across the country.

Since the Taliban government took over in 2021, there has been a barrage of complaints from citizens relating to distribution challenges, and bribery and corruption with regard to the e-Tazkiras project.

Accurate census data expected

In a related development, the NSIA also met with authorities of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to discuss an upcoming census in the country.

NSIA Director General, Abdul Qahir Haji, the UNFPA acting Country representative for Afghanistan, Nada Naja, and deputy UNFPA, Ahmad Wali Rasikh, examined issues around the national population census in Afghanistan.

They discussed ways through which the census can be conducted to obtain reliable and accurate population data to boost Afghanistan’s statistical information system. The country has an estimated population of 44.5 million people.

Article Topics

Afghanistan  |  civil registration  |  CRVS  |  digital ID  |  e-Tazkira  |  identity document  |  identity management  |  legal identity  |  national ID  |  United Nations