Residents of six Brazilian states and the country’s Federal District can now generate a digital national identity card that they can store on their Apple or Android smartphone and use to verify their ID for multiple uses including accessing public services and contactless cross-border travel to other South American countries within the Mercosur region.

The Government of Brazil is enabling residents to create the digital ID when they are issued with a new physical national identity card — known as the Carteira de Identidade Nacional (CIN) — that incorporates a QR code to facilitate official verification as well as an MRZ code for cross-border identification. This replaces the Registro Geral ID documents currently issued by individual states.

Once they have received their physical CIN, residents can generate a digital version via the Gov.br  app by scanning the QR code on the physical card and validating their biometric data with a selfie. They can then use their digital CIN wherever they would otherwise use the physical version and when travelling to Mercosur countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

At launch, the new digital and physical CIN is available to residents of Alagoas, Distrito Federal, Goiás, Pará, Paraíba, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. A national rollout across Brazil’s 20 other states and administrations is due to be completed by March 2023, according to a Notícias e Concursos report.

Colombia began letting residents use their digital national identity cards for cross-border travel to Mercosur countries in August.

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