KAMPALA, Uganda — At least 35 million Ugandans can now be accessed through a biometric system following the completion of a nationwide mass enrollment and data migration exercise by National Identification and Registration Authority.
The update was announced during a press briefing by NIRA public relations officer Claire Ollama at Police Headquarters Naguru. She said the exercise has strengthened the country’s national identification database and improved access to identity verification services across government and the private sector.
The mass enrollment began on May 27, 2025, and was initially scheduled to run for six months until Nov. 8, 2025. It was later extended to end on Feb. 8, 2026, to allow more citizens to be reached. The exercise focused on renewing expired national identity cards, updating records, and issuing National Identification Numbers to children.
According to NIRA, the target was to handle 15.8 million records. By the close of the exercise, 14,311,877 people had been successfully processed, representing about 90.5 percent of the target. In addition, all 28,571,893 records that existed in the old NIRA system were fully migrated to the new digital platform.
NIRA also reported progress in card production and distribution. A total of 7,261,435 national identity cards have been printed and dispatched to various parts of the country. Of these, about 35 percent have already been issued to their rightful owners.
Ollama said the full features of the new national identity cards will become accessible once NIRA completes work on its new system, which is expected to go live on March 31, 2026. Until then, she noted that all 103 service providers that rely on the national ID currently have alternative methods to verify cardholders.
Officials said the upgraded system is expected to improve service delivery, security, and planning by enabling faster and more reliable identification of citizens nationwide.
