Bombshell: ICAO denies certifying Ghana card as e-passport

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The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has denied reports that it had given its seal of approval for Ghana’s National Identity Card, the Ghana Card to be recognized globally as a valid e-passport.

Reports were rife last week that the Ghana Card had become an e-passport and could be used at 44,000 airports worldwide to board flights to Ghana.

This was after a “Key Ceremony” on Wednesday, February 9, 2022, at the headquarters of ICAO in Montreal, Canada, during which Ghana, represented by the High Commissioner to Canada, H.E Ransford Sowah, received the ‘key’ to symbolically indicate the country’s entry into the ICAO family.

H.E Ransford Sowah explained that the Ghana Card contains the biometric information of the holder with a cryptographic digital signature stored on a chip that can be used to authenticate the identity of travellers.

“This makes Ghana one of the few countries in the world where the national ID card also has an e-passport capability,” he emphasized.

He continued, “This means that with this Key Ceremony, all holders of the Ghana Card have an ICAO compliant e-passport that can be read and verified at all ICAO compliant airports/borderposts across the world. It can be used for international travel; subject of course to visa restrictions and bilateral agreements. Indeed, the Ghana Card is already valid for travel in all ECOWAS countries.

But ICAO in a series of tweets Friday evening completely dismissed the reports describing them as inaccurate adding that any agreement to make Ghana’s ID card an e-passport must be between Ghana and other member states.

ICAO is aware of recent and incorrect media reports claiming that ICAO has agreed that the Ghanaian ID card is equivalent to an ePassport. However, it is not ICAO’s role to certify the use of a State’s Identity Card for international travel in place of a passport.

— ICAO (@icao) February 11, 2022

It is the sovereign right of each individual State to decide upon its entry and exit requirements and the documents that need to be presented by those travelling to and/or from its territory.

— ICAO (@icao) February 11, 2022

A number of States worldwide accept specified national ID cards as identity documents during air travel based on bilateral agreement between issuing and receiving states. *Any* decision to accept such alternative travel identity documents is made by the receiving state itself.

— ICAO (@icao) February 11, 2022

source: starrfm.com.gh