According to a consular officer at the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the government of Iran did not require Iranian nationals (either within or outside of Iran) who held birth certificates with the emblem of the ex-monarchy to exchange them for birth certificates bearing the emblem of the Islamic Republic of Iran (6 Jan. 1993).

In Iran, however, birth certificates are also used as identification cards. These birth certificates bear the picture of their owner and they must be regularly updated (5 Jan. 1993). There is no regular time period within which birth certificates must be updated; the government in power at the time determines when the certificates are to be updated. When the government decides to recall birth certificates to update them, it makes public announcements in the Iranian media. The certificates of the oldest sector of the population are updated first, and the authorities work their way back by age until all Iranian nationals have had their certificates updated (6 Jan. 1993).

Those Iranian nationals who are outside of Iran often call their embassy when they learn from their family members or Iranian newspapers that it is time to update their birth certificates and process the update through the embassy (Ibid.).

After the government changed in Iran in 1979, the emblem of the ex-monarchy on the birth certificate was changed to depict the emblem of the Islamic Republic of Iran (5 Jan. 1993). Birth certificates issued or updated after 1979 would reflect this change and have the new emblem.

Additional information on this subject could not be found among the sources currently available to the DIRB.

Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ottawa. January 5 and 6 1993. Telephone Interviews with Consular Officer.