Infographic of new Malaysian passport and ID card is AI-generated
Days after Malaysia’s home minister announced plans to release redesigned passports and national identity cards, an AI-generated graphic was shared in social media posts falsely claiming it revealed the new-look documents. The graphic is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, and Malaysia’s home affairs ministry has also said the images of the purported new passport and ID card are not authentic.
“New. MALAYSIA Passport & mykad 2026,” reads the caption of a graphic shared on Facebook on January 11, 2026.
The infographic shows a blue passport featuring the Malaysian coat of arms and an identity card featuring the Malaysian flag. The graphic also includes information about when the new documents will be available, application methods and cost.
It surfaced after Malaysian Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail announced on January 8 that the country planned to introduce new passports and identity cards with enhanced security features later in the year (archived link).
The minister said each security document had a specific replacement cycle and updates were needed to maintain integrity (archived link).
Screenshot of the false post taken on January 12, 2026 with a red X added by AFP
The same infographic was also shared elsewhere on Facebook and Instagram, as well as in Thai-language posts.
But as of January 14, the government has not released any official images of the redesigned passport and identity card.
A closer inspection of the circulating infographic found a watermark for Google’s AI tool Gemini in its bottom-right corner.
The image also contains numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes, another hallmark of AI-generated content.
Screenshot of the falsely shared graphic, with spelling mistakes and the Gemini watermark highlighted in red by AFP
Moreover, the home affairs ministry has labelled the graphic as false and urged the public to refer to its official channels for information about the roll out of the new documents.
“The Ministry of Home Affairs (KDN) would like to inform that the images of the new passport and MyKad designs circulating on social media are not official and were not issued by KDN,” it said in a January 13 post on its official Facebook page (archived link).
“These visual designs are not authentic and do not represent the actual design of the new passport or MyKad as claimed.”
