Albanian Identity Card

The Albanian Identity Card (Letërnjoftimi) is a national identity card that is issued by the Albanian authorities to their citizens. It is proof of identity, citizenship and residence. The current version is in ID1 format and biometric. The ID Card is compulsory for citizens over 16 years old.

Albania issued identity cards to its citizens until 1991, the year the political system changed. For 18 years, in the absence of such a document, people were obliged to provide birth certificates with photos, which was considered inconvenient. Finally in 2007, in cooperation with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the electronic recording of the population in a central database was made possible. After that, the Albanian authorities have set up an international tender to determine the company that would produce identity cards. The race was won by the French company Sagem Sécurité (Morpho, Safran Group).

The process of issuing identity cards started on 12 January 2009.

The ID Card is plastic and has the size of a credit card. The front contains the bearer's face the following fields written in Albanian and English:

On the photo a micro-holographic reflecting stamp is placed. The back contains the machine readable zone. The microchip, visible on the back contains biometric data such as fingerprints of the holder, the image, signature, etc. The data can be extracted from the chip with wireless RFID technology. The ID card serves as a travel document for international travel between a limited number of countries. The validity of the card is 10 years and is compulsory for citizens over 16.

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Wikipedia