Kenya’s Immigration department has been teasing the next generation ePassport that will soon replace the current “analogue” passports that we have today. It was meant to be released this year on April, but for some reason, they decided to push its release to September this year, which seemed far away at the time.
Well, September is almost here and we expect the Immigration department to start issuing the ePassports on 1st of the month. In a series of tweets today, they clarified about one of the biggest issue about the impending change to the new ePassports: The old passports.
This was the statement:
This is to notify the General Public that the Department of Immigration will start issuing the e-Passport with effect from 1st September 2017. Holders of valid current passports will be allowed to use them for the next 2 years ie to 31st August 2019 after which they will be rendered invalid.
Please note that the department will no longer be issuing the current Ordinary, Diplomatic and East African passports.
The current Passports that we have are only going to be valid for the next two years which means that we have to get the new ePassports soon before they become invalid.
The Immigration department gave us a sneak peak of how the ePassports would look like back in June. This passport will hold your biometric information and security features which will prevent unauthorized use or forgery.
Well you have two weeks to replace your current passport and it would be better to do it now to prevent a situation of having to replace it in 2019.
