Going forward, Cameroon’s entire passport application process will be digitised and biometric passports produced by a German-Portuguese consortium AUGENTIC-INCM.

Following an agreement reached between Martin Mbarga Nguele, Cameroon’s Delegate General for National Security, and Labinot Carreti, CEO of AUGENTIC in Yaounde this month, biometric data, including fingerprints, will be captured with laser fingerprint scanners and no longer with ink pads.

Passport applications within the country will result in a document within 24-hours, while applications conducted outside the country will secure a document in 48-hours.

This process used to take six months or longer and the passport was valid for five years.

The agreement signed between Cameroon and AUGENTIC-INCM is a ten-year Build-Operate-And Transfer (BOT) contract.

According to the terms, AUGENTIC-INCM will set up a passport personalisation and enrollment centre in Yaounde, and enrollment centres in nine regions of the country, Cameroon embassies and consulates abroad.

In addition, the consortium will implement a cashless system for the payment of passport fees, train, transfer knowledge to IT operators and engineers in the country and set up an IT database, public key infrastructure, automated biometric identification system, data management, enrollment and personalisation solution for biometric passport with polycarbonate datapage based on ICAO standards.