Luis Ernesto Camilo says that his Department of Passports is ready to issue digitalized passports using equipment donated by the US government. Dominican passports were handwritten until now. He said the Department has digitalized about half of the seven million passports on file. The process will be completed in a month and a half. Camilo noted that the passport department archives which took up 5,000 square meters of space in a warehouse will now only occupy only one square meter. He said the new system will also make the passports more difficult to forge. They will have the photograph adhered to the page similar to cedulas and drivers licenses. He said his department is in the process of linking up with the Central Electoral Junta (which keeps the registry of all citizens), the Ministry of Interior and Police and the Department of Migration so that the only document a citizen will need to get a passport will be a cedula.
