Document Recovery Programme to Become a Permanent NIRA Feature

The Document Recovery Programme, designed to help citizens replace vital documents that have been lost, stolen, or destroyed, is poised to become a permanent feature of the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA).

Executive Director, Dr. Warren Vernon, made the disclosure during an interview with JIS News.

He noted that the programme was first introduced in response to the passage of Hurricane Melissa in October 2025.

“What we realised is, there are so many persons out there who would have lost their documentation, and some of them just never had documentation. So, we have that programme available online. Persons can go online at nira.gov.jm and they can request support for document recovery,” Dr. Vernon said.

“This programme is going to be a permanent feature of our services because, from time to time, we know of persons [whose] houses burned down, they lost their documents, and they cannot access the service online. Some people lose documents in floods, some people may misplace them, and so on. So we want to make this a permanent feature,” he added.

NIRA is also advanced with its public education campaign entitled ‘Birth to ID” (identification card).

“There are some persons that are not ID-ready. In other words, they can’t benefit from the programme because they don’t have a birth certificate. So, what we are doing is not only national ID enrolment but we are also fixing, at the same time, the civil registration component where we are getting into the hands of Jamaicans their birth certificates, so that they can then move to the next step, which is to enrol for a national identification card,” Dr. Vernon stated.

The Executive Director emphasised that the national ID card streamlines access to services, safeguards individual identity through its secure design, and is positioning Jamaica to embrace digital government services.

“The best way to view digital services is really where government institutions will open to the public and… where the citizen can now start to access the services when they need it, and not when the Government is able to provide those services. But beyond the simplification of services [is] the fact that you can now register or enrol once and use your national identification card everywhere,” he stated.

NIRA’s mandate is to provide secure and reliable identification for Jamaican citizens and individuals legally residing in the country.

This new public body is also responsible for delivering reliable civil registration services through the Office of the Registrar General.