Official: Gov’t to roll out smart ID cards next week

AMMAN — Highly-secure smart ID cards will be issued next week to replace the old civil ID cards, the Civil Status and Passports Department said on Wednesday.

Citizens will pay JD2 for the new ID card, which can hold 140kb of information, said Marwan Qteishat, director general for the Civil Status and Passports Department. 

“This project, which is implemented in cooperation with the ICT Ministry, was tested repeatedly to ensure accuracy and safety and it will save lots of information,” he told The Jordan Times on Wednesday.

“State-of-the-art technology was adopted when developing the new smart cards to ensure maximum security… In the future, citizens will only have to carry this card as it will hold the information needed by many public agencies,” he added.

Citizens can report to any of the department’s offices for the fingerprint and the iris scan, Qteishat said, noting that health insurance details, social security information and other data will be added to the smart card at a later stage.

In November, the Cabinet approved the procedures to move forward with the smart ID card project to be implemented in two stages in 2016.