Maldives uses biometrics to fish out illegal migrant workers for repatriation

Jan 22, 2025, 10:24 am EST | Ayang Macdonald

Categories Biometrics News | Civil / National ID | Government Services

Maldives uses biometrics to fish out illegal migrant workers for repatriation

The Maldivian government says expatriates working illegally in the country are being identified through a biometric drive, and will all be sent packing out of the country.

Maldives has faced major challenges with undocumented migrant workers over the years, pushing the government to resort to a biometric operation to thoroughly identify all foreigners working in the country under irregular conditions.

The biometric operation consists of officials collecting the data of expatriate workers and checking against existing databases to see if they are employed with regular requirements.

Daiji World cites the country’s official media, PMS News, as reporting over the weekend that the biometric operation is vital as it is helping authorities to catch those who may have entered the country and working using fraudulent travel credentials. Already, the government is said to have deported more than 5,000 of such irregular migrant workers in the course of last year.

The Minister of State for Homeland Security and Technology, Ahmed Siddeeq, is quoted as explaining that the biometric identification for all migrant workers will run till April this year, but the broader government program for a more streamlined management of migrant workers will extend to 2027.

Labelled Operation Kurangi, the biometric identification process for migrant workers was launched in May last year. By October, around 8,000 persons had been identified.

Over the weekend, the exercise was launched in the Male’ region of Maldives, The Edition reports, with 75 Homeland Security Ministry officials deployed to capture the biometric data of expatriate working in major companies in the region as well as those in the education sector.

Apart from Male’, the dispatched teams are also expected to capture data from migrant workers in the Thilafushi and Gulhi Falhu islands of the country.