The scheduled period for collecting information and photographing residents of Huye, Gisagara, and Nyanza districts in the Southern Province for the new digital national ID has ended, yet less than 50% of the targeted population was served.
These activities began on 28 October and were supposed to end on 23 November 2025. The three districts were chosen as the starting point for a program that will later be implemented nationwide.
The plan was to photograph 1.2 million residents in these districts, but by 23 November, only about 350,000 had been photographed.
The registration and photography were conducted in various sectors and some cells, but as the deadline approached, long queues of unserved residents were still visible.
Many residents reported that they spent several days returning to the registration sites but left without receiving the service due to issues such as errors in civil registration data, system connectivity problems, and frequent power outages.
These challenges prevented the completion of the photography within the allocated time, making an extension necessary.
One resident said: “I haven’t been photographed yet, but they counted us and found that the children were not registered in the civil registry. When I went to register them, sometimes they worked on only one-person, other times there was no electricity, and other times the system failed. In the end, they didn’t serve us.”
Another resident added: “I haven’t been photographed, and I’ve spent a whole week coming here, only to find so many people. We leave around 6 PM or 7 PM, and they tell us to return the next day.”
Manago Dieudonné, an official at the National Identification Agency (NIDA), told RBA that the time set to work in these three initial districts was too short, prompting a 14-day extension starting on 24 November 2025.
He said: “The time we had allocated turned out to be insufficient, so we added another two weeks. We request residents to come during this extended period so they don’t miss out.”
During the data collection for the digital ID, biometric features are captured, including fingerprints from all ten fingers, facial images, iris scans, and other civil registration details.
Once issued, the new digital IDs will be provided to everyone from newborn babies onward, and citizens will no longer need to carry a physical ID card as before.
In the 2025/2026 fiscal year, the digital ID project received a budget allocation of 12,265,253,074 Rwandan Francs.
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