Smooth Passport Service

Effective and efficient public service delivery is the main duty of the government as it builds public trust in state institutions. Seeing long queues in government offices to get a passport, register national ID cards, or obtain driving licenses has been a common sight. It’s a matter of concern that the citizens have to face delays and difficulties in obtaining them. What makes matters even worse is occasional suspension of such services owing to malware attack on computer software. 

The Department of Passport has been the target of cyber attack in recent days in a repeat of what happened in January of 2023. Temporarily halted application registration and issuance of e-passports through the online system have not yet come into full-fledged operation, leaving those in urgent need of passports in great distress. People applying for or renewing passports are significantly affected as malware (virus) infects the system of the passport department. 

Each day more than 1,500 Nepalis leave for foreign countries for employment. If the Department fails to issue passports in time, it will definitely create hurdles to the foreign job aspirants and others. On November 17, 2021, Nepal started providing e-passports to meet the security and design requirements mandated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Nepal switched to machine-readable passports abandoning hand-written ones in 2010; and since 2021 Nepal has been issuing e-passports. In 2020, IDEMIA, a French company, won the contract to print two million e-passports for Nepal. 

Again in July 2023, Nepal negotiated a contract with IDEMIA to purchase an additional 2.8 million biometric passports. The IDEMIA has maintained the monopoly in the printing and software management for more than 15 years now. A preliminary investigation of the Department did not find any serious breach or attack made by any individual or company in the system. This might have happened mainly due to virus spread during the use of personal pen drives and other additional USB ports.

 According to the Department, the online application service will come into full operation by Friday (December 13) this week. Rabindra Rajbhandari, its director,   said that, since the day of the malware attack, they have completed the work of screening more than 225 suspicious places including DAOs and AAOs by mobilising concerned technical teams and with the help of the technical teams from Nepal's e-passport printing company and IDEMIA, the French company.

Issuing passport is as sensitive as it is critically important. Any malfunction in the process not only deprives the would-be service recipients of the much-needed document but also tarnishes the image of the government. The ineptitude in promptly resolving such recurring issue will only fuel their frustration. The government needs to take this virus issue seriously and stay prepared to deal with technical problems by putting in place skilled software security experts. 

This incident should teach us a lesson in cyber security, and galvanise the government to take measures to ensure that no such problems occur again. A thorough investigation should be carried out and the root of the problem needs to be identified. All loopholes must be plugged and weaknesses sorted out to keep the hackers with sinister intention out of reach of such critical system. It's high time the government launched a system to not only foil such attack but also developed a strong deterrence to those involved in such nefarious activities.