Biometrics and Development: Women

Opportunity International Launches "Banking on Women" Campaign (Yahoo Finance)

For impoverished women, secure banking services have remained largely out of reach due to a lack of proper identification required to open a bank account. To give women in the developing world safe, secure access to banking services, Opportunity International deploys cutting-edge technologies such as smart cards and biometric fingerprint readers. The use of these innovative technologies makes it possible for rural Africans to open a bank account without the passport or identification card required by traditional financial institutions.

Through Opportunity International, thousands of women across the developing world have gained an identity, or personhood, in a region that is traditionally dominated by men.

The absence of a legitimate individual identity is a barrier to the exercise of basic human rights.