By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has canceled roughly 4.2 million computerized national identity cards belonging to citizens officially recorded as dead in provincial civil registration systems, the agency said on Wednesday, part of a nationwide drive to reconcile its records and protect the integrity of the country’s central identity database.
The move addresses a long-standing gap in Pakistan’s identity infrastructure: while deaths are formally logged with local authorities, families frequently fail to notify the federal database, leaving the cards active and potentially vulnerable to misuse. Nadra said the cancellations followed a systematic cross-check of its citizen registry against provincial civil registration data.
Under Pakistan’s legal framework, Nadra is required to incorporate “vital life-event information” — births, deaths, marriages and divorces — reported through provincial and local Civil Registration Management Systems. Those records are typically filed by blood relatives at union councils, town committees or cantonment boards.
Citing its mandate under Sections 7(b)(ii) and 21 of the Nadra Ordinance 2000 and Rules 16 and 17 of the Nadra (National Identity Card) Rules 2002, the authority conducted a comprehensive reconciliation to ensure the accuracy of the national citizen database. The 4.2 million cancellations are the direct result of that exercise. “To safeguard the integrity of the national database and prevent any potential misuse or fraudulent activity arising from identity records remaining active after death, Nadra therefore proceeded with the cancellation of such CNICs following verification through civil registration records,” the authority said in its statement.
Nadra had already taken steps to make voluntary cancellations easier. It waived the standard fee and dropped the requirement that families surrender the physical card of the deceased. Those measures prompted roughly 3 million families to come forward on their own. Still, more than 4.2 million cards remained active even though the deaths had been officially registered elsewhere in the system.
The authority acknowledged that errors or deliberate misreporting can occasionally occur. In rare cases where a death may have been registered fraudulently or by mistake, affected individuals can have their cards restored immediately. They need only visit the nearest Nadra registration center for biometric verification. There is no fee, and the agency will provide the exact location where the death was recorded — along with the name of the relative who reported it — so the citizen can pursue any necessary corrections at the local level.
Separately, Nadra has launched a parallel nationwide campaign to close another gap in the identity system: unregistered children. The authority has begun sending text-message notifications to the parents or guardians of approximately 14 million children whose births have been recorded in provincial or local government civil registration systems but who have not yet been enrolled with Nadra.
Parents are being urged to complete the process and obtain Child Registration Certificates, also known as B-Forms, to bring their children formally into the national database. To make the service more accessible, Nadra said it will soon allow issuance of these certificates through its extensive network of NADRA e-Sahulat franchises across the country.
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