Foreign Affairs Minister-designate, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey has indicated the country’s preparedness to start issuing chip-embedded passports by mid-2021.

According to her, preparations are far advanced and by mid-2021, Ghana will introduce chip-embedded passports for Ghanaians.
The minister-designate who was responding to a question posed by Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu when she appeared before the vetting committee on Thursday, February 11, 2021, said the move will push the country to keep up with technological advancement.

“In view of this, we will be more strategic in our international engagements by focusing on economic, commercial and business benefits accruing to Ghana. We will introduce chip-embedded passports to keep up with technological advancement and enhance the security of Ghanaian passports and implement the project to issue Machine-Readable Visa Stickers”, she said.

Chip-embedded passport also known as a biometric passport is a traditional passport that has an embedded electronic microprocessor chip which contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of the passport holder.

It uses contactless smart card technology, including a microprocessor chip (computer chip) and antenna (for both power to the chip and communication) embedded in the front or back cover, or centre page, of the passport.