The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine at the first reading adopted bill No. 4355 on amendments to the law “On the Unified State Demographic Register and Documents Confirming the Citizenship of Ukraine, Certifying the Identity or his Special Status”, which increases the status of using digital passports in the Diia application at the legal level.
Some 303 MPs voted for the document at a plenary session on Thursday.
“Ukrainians will be able to use digital passports on a par with paper ones. There will be no more options not to accept Diia anymore,” Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov commented on the adoption of the bill on his Facebook page.
He said that the relevant amendments to the said law were developed by the Ministry of Digital Transformation together with the Committee for Digital Transformation. “Prior to that, the use of passports in Diia was regulated by a decree of the Cabinet of Ministers,” Fedorov said. This bill also defines terminology, in particular the use of electronic passports.
The bill gives definitions to e-passport – a passport of a citizen of Ukraine in the form of a card and an e-passport for traveling abroad.
According to the bill, an e-passport can be presented on the territory of Ukraine for identification and confirmation of citizenship. However, this rule does not apply when crossing the state border and entering/leaving the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
According to the document, electronic copies of an e-passport and an e-passport for traveling abroad can be submitted and used as copies of a passport of a citizen of Ukraine, a passport of a citizen of Ukraine for traveling abroad.
An e-passport, an e-passport for traveling abroad are issued free of charge at the request of a person who has a passport of a citizen of Ukraine or a passport of a citizen of Ukraine for traveling abroad, which are issued using the means of the unified state demographic register.