The Kuwait government has again warned that citizens and expatriates who do not register their biometric fingerprints by December 31 will not be able to access all essential services.

The final warning job on the Interior Ministry’s Facebook account states that people who do not comply with the rules will have banking and government services cut off.

“An appointment for biometric fingerprinting must be made before the deadline indicated via the ‘Meta’ or ‘Sahl’ platform to avoid the suspension of government services and banking transactions”, we can read in the warning.

The government was service shutdown warning for people not registered since September.

Kuwait launched the mandatory fingerprint registration exercise in March, with the government saying it was to create a national database that would help strengthen national security and streamline access to public services.

The deadline for the nation was September 30, and those who had not submitted their biometrics by that deadline faced difficulties accessing banking and other public sector services. The Home Office’s recent warning suggests that many other services will be inaccessible to those who do not follow the government directive.

Around 2.5 million citizens had finished biometric registration in September, while in October, 470,900 expatriates had been registered. Just over 20,000 citizens have not yet submitted their biometric data, according to figures recently mentioned by the authorities.

Last month, the Director of the General Department of Personnel Identification of the Criminal Evidence Department, Brigadier General Nayef Al-Mutairi, responded to lingering fears of data and rights violations regarding the fingerprinting process, affirming that appropriate measures have been taken to safeguard the data collected and to protect the right to privacy of individuals.

Article topics

biometric database | biometric identification | biometrics | fingerprint biometrics | Kuwait