KARACHI, October 21 2024: Keeping in view the grievances being suffered by millions of senior citizens above 60 years of age, the President of Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) Muhammad Jawed Bilwani urged the government to immediately replace NADRA’s existing biometric verification facility with “Face Recognition Facility” which would provide a huge relief to millions of senior citizens facing immense hardships every day due to failure of biometric verification at various institutions.
In a letter sent to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President KCCI stated that a large number of senior citizens including pensioners face immense hardships across Pakistan due to the biometric verification condition which usually fails in the case of senior citizens.
“On one hand, NADRA is facilitating the younger lot by offering an online facility, as their fingerprints appear easily, but on the other, our senior citizens are being maltreated”, he said, adding that it was known globally that senior citizens’ fingerprints do not appear easily on biometric devices and machines, yet senior citizens in Pakistan are repeatedly asked to keep visiting NADRA and other institutions for biometric verification.
While once again underscoring the need to immediately provide a face recognition facility to senior citizens, he suggested that the proposed face recognition facility can later be extended to the entire population of the country in various phases which can, subsequently, be integrated with the database of police and other law enforcement agencies that would help in quickly identifying individuals and prove favourable for the Safe City projects across Pakistan.
“Government’s prompt action for replacing biometric verification with face recognition will certainly be in the national interest as it is going to provide huge support to millions of senior citizens all over Pakistan”, he said and hoped that PM Shehbaz Sharif would review the overall hardship being faced public and accordingly provide relief in the form of face recognition facility at the earliest possible time.
