Al-Jazirah newspaper

If it were up to many citizens, they would hide the photo on their identity cards with a sticker, as many women already do. But it isn’t just women, men too want to hide their pictures because the machines used by the Civil Affairs department that print identity cards distort peoples’ faces, making them look like they are from a another planet!

But to be fair, it isn’t just the Civil Affairs machines that are guilty of this printing crime as all card-issuing machines, for one reason or another, do a poor job of printing accurate pictures.

The situation has been escalated on the pages of local newspapers. Lawyer Saleh Al-Dhibibi pointed out that covering the photo of women on their national identity card defeats the very purpose of a photo ID. He urged government agencies to instead hire female employees who can work and deal with women's needs and issues. He went on to explain that whoever applies for a national identity card is usually a trustworthy person and that tampering with the picture or covering it makes the card lose its value.

In other words, it makes no sense to differentiate between the passport and the national ID card, as they are both photo IDs issued by the government.

Personally, I know female employees in government hospitals who do not cover their face but who hide the photo on the employment ID card that they hang around their neck.