'Source documents should be modernized'

H.D.H Senewiratne

The government should take all necessary measures to issue proper source documents, such as birth certificates and identity cards to all citizens for the purpose of issuing authentic travel documents specially passports to avoid unnecessary problems when travelling overseas, a group of top entrepreneurs said.

Nayana Dehigama

"Normally the passport is the only document which helps to verify a person's identity when they go overseas, which is normally issued based on the data in the birth certificate and the national identity card of a individual, Chairman/Managing Director Epic Lanka Group of Companies Nayana Dehigama said.

He said that to issue proper travel documents , the government should firstly introduce a safe security system for source documents which would in turn minimizes many issues and hassels for travellers.

Dehigama said that current source documents such as identity cards and birth certificates, had only primitive security features, which could be counterfeited. Therefore the need of the hour was to improve and develop the system to ensure its authenticity and its reliability for authorities here or abroad, he said.Dehigama being a frequent overseas traveller said that the passport was the most important document for immigration and emigration authorities to verify one's identity. Losing its credibility will impose enormous inconvenience and problems for travellers.

"By providing bogus/ altered source documents to the Immigration and Emigration Department by a travel agent to a housemaid to obtain a passport, resulted in the death of housemaid Rizana Nafeek in Saudi Arabia which on the other hand tarnishes the image of the country owing to the passport verifying issue, he said.

He said that time was ripe to issue proper source documents for citizens, which will not be a big investment to the government to install such technology for the country. Therefore, some security feature should be incorporated into source documents which would make matters easy for local and foreign authorities to ensure its authenticity, Dehigama said. He said the government should adopt some simple, safe and more secured technology, such as verifying by a simple device method, electronic verification, forensic verification or some other method to ensure the authenticity of source documents in the country.