The Ministry of Interior’s Assistant Undersecretary for Citizenship and Passports Major General Mazen Al-Jarrah announced some unusual new requirements for the issuance of Kuwaiti passports: DNA testing.

Speaking about the new Kuwaiti passports, Jarrah said that DNA tests will be a condition to issue them with the aim of building a database with citizens’ DNA information. He explained that issuance of the new passports would start by the beginning of the year, starting with diplomats before offering it to all citizens through service centers, where a special criminal investigation clerk would be present to do the DNA tests for applicants.

“DNA will be a condition to register babies older than six months, be born in or outside Kuwait in order to prevent unlawfully adding anybody to citizenship files,” he explained, noting that he followed up this measure with a ruling family member.