ISLAMABAD – Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has directed the implementation of a facial recognition system across Pakistan by December 31, 2025, with oversight from the Ministry of Interior.
He issued the directives after the NADRA chairman proposed the nationwide adoption of facial recognition technology during a meeting in Islamabad.
The NADRA chief said the facial recognition system will assist individuals facing issues with fingerprint verification.
In a push to improve access to government services, it was revealed that NADRA facilities have now been extended to 44 underserved tehsils and select union councils across the country.
The Interior Minister further announced that all 31 union councils in Islamabad will be equipped with NADRA services by June 30, 2025.
In addition, the minister approved the establishment of new regional NADRA offices in Multan, Sukkur, and Gwadar, aiming to enhance service delivery and citizen accessibility.
It has also been decided all mobile SIMs registered on expired Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs) will be blocked immediately.
As part of the first phase of this nationwide campaign, SIMs issued on CNICs that expired in or before 2017 will be deactivated. In subsequent stages, the same policy will apply to all cancelled CNICs issued after 2017, ensuring that only valid identity cards are used for SIM registration.
The Ministry of Interior, in collaboration with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), has initiated the process to deactivate SIMs that are still registered in the names of deceased individuals or those holding expired identification documents.
Concerns were also raised during the meeting about various public and private institutions maintaining separate databases of biometric information of citizens, saying it poses significant risks of misuse and data theft.
To mitigate this, it was decided that NADRA’s centralized and secure database will be the standard, and all separate biometric storage systems will be discontinued.
Earlier, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi laid the foundation stone of a 10-storey NADRA Mega Center in Islamabad’s Sector I-8.
The state-of-the-art center is expected to be completed by June 2026, marking a significant step toward the digital transformation of identity services in the country.
