The Police of Armenia are taking active steps to introduce biometric passports. This is what Deputy Chief of Police of Armenia Ara Fidanyan said in response to deputies’ questions during a discussion on the draft of the 2022 State Budget held as part of today’s session of joint parliamentary committees.

According to Fidanyan, the authorities will try to issue only passports containing biometric data, meaning old passports need to be gradually put out of circulation.

However, there is nothing mentioned about biometric passports in the draft of the state budget. This concerns the procedures for citizens of Armenia to acquire Armenian citizenship or be deprived of citizenship. Based on the government’s calculations, 3,190,000 citizens of Armenia have typical passports for a ten-year period, of which 2,386,000 are still valid. It turns out that the validity period of the passports of 1,018,614 citizens has expired. The currently valid passports will remain in effect until the end of the validity period (ten years), even after the introduction of biometric passports. The citizens of Armenia, the validity period of whose passports has expired, will be issued passports for a two-year term until the introduction of biometric passports, which will also be issued for ten years.