Interior Ministry: Bulgaria to issue ID, residence cards with chips ‘by end of 2023’
New-model identity cards, residence permit and residence card will be issued by the end of 2023, caretaker deputy interior minister Monika Dimitrova-Beecher said on April 5.
She was speaking at a briefing on the “system for issuing Bulgarian personal documents Generation 2019″ a project being carried out in terms of contract by a German consortium that won the public tender, the ministry said in a media statement.
The project is important not only for the Interior Ministry, but also for all Bulgarian citizens, because it would ease border crossings, according to the ministry.
“The concept for creating the new personal documents is completely new, they will have a new look, design, meeting the modern conditions and standards for quality and protections,” Dimitrova-Beecher said.
A very important element of the project is the assignment of the mobile application for electronic identification, which facilitates the use of electronic administrative services by the public, according to the Interior Ministry.
Phased steps have already been taken to approve the design specification for the blanks of the three types of cards – identity cards, residence cards and residence permits, the ministry said.
“The introduction of the centralized personalization system will provide an entirely new generation of ID cards, one of the most secure in Europe and at the service of Bulgarian citizens to facilitate their travel,” it said.
The head of the Bulgarian Identity Documents directorate, Svetlana Tseneva, said that the differences between the current ID documents and the new ones included that there would be an electronic carrier of information with recorded biometric data and electronic identification, which would facilitate travel with an identity card.
The new personal IDs will have stronger protection against forgery, one of which is a metallized photo on the back of the card.
Tseneva said that personal documents would not be replaced en masse with new ones, but only when their validity expires.
(Photo: Bulgarian Interior Ministry)
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