Frequently Used Documents Will Be Digitized in Kazakhstan

By the end of 2020, Kazakhstan plans to digitize the following types of documents: passport, higher education diploma, student ID, insurance policy, driver’s license, vehicle registration certificate, and others. This was announced by Bagdat Musin, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry at a government meeting.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced his message to the people of Kazakhstan at the joint meeting of the chambers of parliament on September 1, wherein he instructed them to replace the paper formats of the most common certificates and documents with digital ones. According to him, the transition to digital document flow is hampered because of poor work on creating a united database system. He also blamed «the dominance of a number of state-owned and affiliated companies in the IT industry.»

The minister in charge of digitization, in turn, claimed that within a year his department would develop a reference database that would unify databases of different government agencies.

Bagdat Musin noted that to simplify the public services procedure, they are introducing a biometric mechanism. One can already use it to register on the e-government website and receive public services online. The eGov Mobile app even has a digital version of the identity card which is fully valid and equal to the regular one.

Musin added that this biometric tool will be provided to businesses in the form of an open API (an application programming interface that allows secure data exchange between different services) in order to develop online commercial services.

«By the end of the year, we will also cancel around thirty of the most requested certificates. Authenticity will be confirmed via reading a QR code,» the minister said.

Earlier Murat Zhumanbay, director of the public relations department at the JSC GC Government for Сitizens, said that Kazakhstanis would be able to receive service in public service centers using their fingerprints.

According to the Minister of Internal Affairs Erlan Turgumbayev, from January 1, 2021, Kazakhstani drivers will no longer be required to have vehicle titles on them as the documents will be stored in an electronic database.