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Costa Rica Moves Closer to Vision of
Regional Standard in ID Credentials with New
Foreign Resident Card
No Tinted Rear Windows
Allowed Beginning July
Costa Rica Moves Closer to Vision of
Regional Standard in ID Credentials with New
Foreign Resident Card
LaserCard Corporation announced that waiting
time to obtain DIMEX, the Costa Rica Foreign
Resident ID card, will be substantially
shortened with the introduction of new
nationwide data capture facilities. As
of April 1, applicants will be able to
enroll at 25 specially equipped branch
offices of the Banco de Costa Rica.
The added capacity will significantly reduce
waiting times for appointments and
accelerate use of the new, highly secure ID
card by the country’s 200,000+ legal foreign
residents. To date, more than 40,000 ID
credentials have been issued through the
enrollment center at DGME offices in the
nation’s capital, San Jose.
For its new Foreign Resident ID card,
introduced in June 2008, Costa Rica’s
Department of Immigration selected
LaserCard’s tamper-proof optical memory
technology featuring layered security, which
is used by both the USA and Canada for their
Permanent Resident Card programs (known as
the “Green Card” in the USA).
The move is designed to bring Costa Rica’s
DGME closer to its vision of a “regional
standard” in identity credentials to
facilitate cross border travel and
strengthened security across multiple
countries in the Americas.
Costa Rica’s highly counterfeit resistant
DIMEX card takes the place of a document
that had been subject to widespread
counterfeiting and forgery.
With Costa Rica’s rapidly developing economy
and geographic location encouraging a sharp
increase in its foreign resident and
transient populations, the potential for
abuse of the former entry documents had
become the source of escalating economic and
security concerns.
The new counterfeit-resistant ID card is a
core element of Costa Rica’s ongoing
transformation of its migration management
system. The DGME aims to influence other
Central American countries to adopt the
credential as a regional standard.
“There are approximately 200,000 foreign
residents legally residing in Costa Rica
today,” said Mario Zamora, Director of
immigration.
“We welcome these residents and want to be
sure that their benefits are available only
to them and not to those who plan to exploit
our resources. With the enhanced data
capture initiative, we will be able to issue
the new card far more rapidly to all our
legal residents. They can be assured that
their card will not only confirm their
ability to live and work in Costa Rica but
also provide them with a high level of
protection against identity fraud.”
To support the regional initiative,
LaserCard will provide a range of bilingual
web-based and printed public information
materials and is developing additional
materials such as document examination
resources for inspection agents.
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