Nepal’s national ID outage disrupts passports, banking and government services

Nepal’s national identity infrastructure has seen extensive technical failures, leaving thousands unable to access services that are verified through the National Identity Management Information System (NIDMIS).

Since early July, 13 government agencies including the Department of Passports, banks, tax offices and immigration have suffered authentication problems via National Identity Numbers (NINs). Official departments have been forced to manually accept confirmation pages as a temporary workaround, reports The Kathmandu Post.

The Department of National ID and Civil Registration said new applicants were receiving NINs but their records were not being approved by the system, leading to widespread complaints. The department’s director general Krishna Poudel said IT teams, supported by French vendor IN Groupe, had been working for a week to restore functionality.

IN Groupe supplied both NIDMIS and Nepal’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), and has now deployed specialists to Kathmandu, with officials expecting full restoration next week. Only two weeks ago, it was revealed that Nepali authorities had chosen IN Groupe for a new ABIS with the system upgraded for a capacity of 10 million biometric records.

The agreement seemed to have been struck with some urgency, as The Kathmandu Post reported the direct procurement bypassed normal tender procedures, allowed by the Public Procurement Act, and the license of the ABIS was said to have been nearing expiry with capacity left for only a few thousand data entries.

The outage leaves further questions as the government on May 8 cancelled a global tender for long‑term operation and maintenance of NIDMIS, choosing to manage the system in‑house instead. The government cited a push for digital sovereignty, even as it was reported technical evaluation was not completed before the tender was cancelled.

Reliance on national ID magnifies impact

Nepal has collected biometric data from around 20 million people, but only 7.8 million national identity cards have been printed, leaving millions waiting. Officials warn that delays are worsening as the card becomes mandatory for passports, banking, social security, driving licences, property transactions and university entrance exams.

The national identity card is now mandatory to conduct transactions using Nepal’s national digital payment system. The country’s central bank issued an amendment to this effect, with the aim of strengthening eKYC for all financial operations.

Nepal officials have formally lodged a proposal with Indian authorities requesting that its NID card be recognized as an official travel document, giving it the same status as passports. Nepal’s immigration director Ram Chandra Tiwari said the eventual aim was to replace citizenship certificates, which can also be used as travel documents for India, with the NIN entirely.

But this could all be stymied if the back-end infrastructure is not in place. Agencies linked to NIDMIS say they have repeatedly raised concerns about the slow response. Some have reported severe service backlogs, particularly at the Department of Passports, which has seen a surge in applicants following new migration labor openings in South Korea.

Banks have also been unable to update KYC records because national identity numbers cannot be verified. For now, the affected agencies have been instructed to continue providing services using enrollment confirmation pages until authentication is restored.

The disruption has drawn fresh concerns about Nepal’s ability to manage one of its largest digital infrastructure projects without external support. Earlier this year, the World Bank approved US$50 million to finance the build of digital public infrastructure with the funding going towards digital platforms and a new national identity system.

Nepal’s government has since argued that domestic control will strengthen data sovereignty, but officials inside the department claim they lack the expertise to recover from major failures.

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  digital ID infrastructure  |  digital identity  |  government services  |  IN Groupe  |  national ID  |  Nepal