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The Immigration Department at Entebbe International Airport has opened e-gates for Ugandan citizen passengers to ease clearance.

Ugandan citizens with e-Passports can use self-clearance e-Gates at Entebbe Airport. This feature is only available to Ugandan citizens with e-Passports.

Uganda has progressed with procurement of the e-passport.

The Machine-Readable Passport (MRP), holds only traditional text information, a photo and the ghost image. It does not have biometric features that can identify the passport with the genuine owner, which the e-passport has.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in its document 9303, released the recommended specification of Electronic Machine-Readable Travel documents (e-MRTDs) or e-travel documents.

They recommended that in addition to the usual machine-readable capabilities, the travel documents must have special biometric features, which specifically identify the passport with its holder and as such, enhance the security of travel.

There are different types of biometric security features that vary from fingerprints, facial scan, iris scan, retinal scan, body odour recognition and voice recognition. Uganda’s national database has fingerprints, which will be used for secure recognition.

Worldwide, acceptance of e-passports is based on its capacity to provide a secure identification of the passport holder. It also limits chances of forgery of biometric information stored in the passport by fraudsters. It enhances the privacy of the holder, it limits the chance for identity theft and tremendously eases handling of entry and exit at border airports and points of entry.

With the e-passport personalised, citizens leaving or entering the country can freely do so without necessarily interacting with immigration officers using e-gates. The government of Uganda will soon be installing automated e-gates at Entebbe airport.

The e-passport will tremendously enhance the integrity of the Ugandan passport worldwide, across embassies and airlines. Airline check-in as well as immigration border/airport controls will be less intensive, and when we install e-gates as has been planned for Entebbe, Ugandans returning home will go through the exciting feeling of entering their country on their own.