Aimed at citizens of countries outside the European Union, the electronic residence permit currently totals more than 150 thousand documents issued.
The application of the electronic residence permit started on February 3, 2009 and since then 151,369 documents have been issued to foreign citizens living in Portugal, according to data from the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), advanced by Lusa.
The introduction of the document allowed, according to SEF, to reinforce security mechanisms, since biometric data of the holder are kept, eliminating the possibility of use by an illegitimate holder.
The organization also stresses that the security mechanisms of the electronic residence permit are equivalent to those of the Citizen Card.
According to figures cited by Lusa, most of the bonds issued to date concern Brazilian citizens (67,000), followed by Ukrainians (18,536 papers) and Cape Verdeans (16,839). The SEF delegations that issued more titles, between 14 and 15 thousand each, were those from Setúbal, Cascais and Lisbon / Vale do Tejo.
