The National Database and Registration Authority’s (NADRA) mobile app has a confusing feature that appears to allow deceased individuals to cancel their own identity cards, somehow.
Under the app’s “Cancel Identity Due to Death” feature, users are presented with two options: one for relatives of the deceased, and another labeled “Myself.” Selecting the latter option bizarrely takes the applicant through a facial recognition “liveness check,” a process designed to confirm that the person is physically alive and matches the official record.
Somehow, a deceased person is meant to log in to their NADRA app, start an application through the “myself” option, and even complete a liveness check through facial recognition.
When contacted for clarification, a NADRA spokesperson stated that the “Cancel Identity Due to Death” service is intended solely for the relatives of the deceased. However, the spokesperson did not address why the app explicitly provides a “myself” selection for the deceased, nor why it requires a liveness check for someone presumed dead.
This is another example of poor design and oversight in critical government mobile apps, an issue that plagues several such apps in Pakistan, government or otherwise.
As of now, NADRA has not provided an explanation for the apparent contradiction, leaving open questions about whether the feature is a technical glitch, a mislabeling error, or an unaddressed flaw in the app’s design.