Quick links

South Africa: Banks piling into biometric security (The Citizen)


From the Interpol World Conference:
Security experts call for tighter international border control (Albawaba News)


UK:
New biometric permit cards required for long-term stays (Cayman Compass)

Face recognition gaining appeal

Analysis of the Global Face Biometrics Market (Companies and Markets)

The global market for face biometrics across government and commercial applications is at the growth phase of the Gaussian curve. North America (NA) and Europe account for a major share of the world market, with this trend expected to continue over the forecast period. Emerging economies such as Brazil, India, South Africa, the Middle East, Russia, and China are expected to embrace this technology, thereby offering considerable growth opportunities.

South Africa shows the way on transfer payments

MasterCard issues 10m debit cards for SA social grants (Gadget)

This milestone marks the conclusion of the re-registration phase of the project, with social grant beneficiaries having received their new Debit MasterCard cards with biometric functionality, issued by Grindrod Bank, in association with SASSA and Net1 UEPS Technologies (Net1).

Since March 2012, just under 22 million social grant beneficiaries have re-registered onto the new system introduced by SASSA to minimise fraudulent grant applications and collections and reduce grant administration costs by distributing all grant payments electronically.

South Africa: Smart IDs to be rolled out in July compatible with 2014 election

Ctizens who have been issued with the new smart identity document (ID) card by the 2014 national election would be able to use it to vote, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has said. (Engineering News)

BigID and the changing nature of national identity infrastructures

Nigeria's new ID has apps!

Credit card linked to Nigerian ID (Financial Mail)

In the programme's first phase, Nigerians aged 16 and older and all who have been resident there for more than two years will get the new multipurpose ID, which has 13 applications. It is expected that up to 13m Nigerians will use the product in the first phase.

Among the apps is MasterCard's prepaid technology, which will give cardholders the ability to make electronic payments. MasterCard says this will also have a positive impact on Nigerians who until now have not had access to mainstream financial services.

This one bears keeping an eye on.

In a couple of pioneering cases, the very concept of "The ID" is shifting

To most people, an ID looks a lot like a product — something useful that the government sells to an individual. Pay your fee; get your card. Lose your card; buy a new one.

India and Nigeria (South Africa is pretty bold, too) are pointing the way toward a future where ID isn't just a product, though no government is going to give up its ID card product line any time soon. The future as these countries see it is ID as a government-backed platform supporting an ID ecosystem. They have the bucket (database structure). Now it's being filled (populated). If they get the application programming interface/s (API) right, fasten your seat belt. Things will get really interesting really fast as all sorts of apps hooking into the ID infrastructure become available. Biometric technologies will be an integral part of this transition to "BigID."

UPDATE:
See also:
Brainstorming UID with Srikanth Nadhamuni
The video there is very informaative and extremely worthwhile.

UPDATE II:
I forgot to mention the UAE as another forward-thinking ID environment. The UAE ID is set to be deployed on smartphones.

South Africa: Social grants spokesperson deems biometric technology "a worthy investment"

Analysis: State of the art technology behind SA’s social grants (The New Age)

The latest biometric technology used by the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) to disburse social grants to about 16 million beneficiaries on a monthly basis is proving to be a worthy investment in making life easier for beneficiaries of social grants.

The number of beneficiaries of social grants in South Africa grew from 2 million in 1994 to about 16 million in February 2013. Of these an estimated 11 million are Child Support Grant beneficiaries.

Since March 2012, Sassa has been engaged in the process of mass enrolment of all beneficiaries using the latest biometric technology. This followed a major announcement by Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini on behalf of the government. The technology includes finger and palm verification as well as voice recognition to ensure that the grant money is paid to the relevant beneficiary at all times.

I didn't realize that the number of people Sassa has to keep up with had expanded eight-fold in less than twenty years. It's probably a god idea to automate fraud detection in a disbursements organization that is growing as rapidly as that. Otherwise, it's hard to see how a fraud detection system that depended upon old-school detective types could keep up. Creating the human capital and cultural climate for their success is a long and expensive process.

Managing the implementation of public sector biometric time-and-attendance

SOUTH AFRICA: Education still pondering biometrics (IT Web)


KUWAIT: ‘Finger’ Attendance To Stay For Firemen (Arab Times)


INDIA: Teachers blocking biometric attendance, DU faces contempt notice (Indian Express)



These three pieces reminded me of: What Human Resource Managers Can Learn from the President of Guinea's Move to Eliminate Ghost Workers, still worth reading in its entirety.

Short answer:
In order to achieve top to bottom buy-in, a manager should consider distributing the benefits associated with better identity management techniques among shareholders/stakeholders, managers and workers.

A bonus for on-time attendance (for example) might raise the morale of workers who were always on time, while offering some consolation to those who saw their ability to milk the system reduced.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

Africa news

SOUTH AFRICA:
Court upholds biometric social security procurement tender (ITWeb) 

Social grant tender is valid (IOL)


NIGERIA:
Telecoms firm to Boost Efficiency with Biometric Solutions (All Africa) — access control and time-and-attendance

Kenyan High Commissioner, CODER advocate for Nigerian biometric voting system in 2015 (The Nation)

RWANDA: 
Techno Brain Launches Operations in Rwanda (All Africa) — IT leapfrogging includes a dose of biometrics.

Quick links

Afghanistan prepares for ePassports (Security Document World)


Kenya: a poor implementation of voting technology (E-lected)


Zambia to pilot biometric National Registration Cards (All Africa)


Aadhaar-linked biometric device to replace plan for smart cards at ration shops (The Hindu)


South Africa struggles with social welfare fraud (UPI)



Long-form posts from the blog this week...

Who's in my country? That's a tough one. - With or without biometrics, automated entry/exit systems are complex.


Brazilian ghost doctors have rubber fingers - Does the scam argue for, or against, biometric time-and-attendance systems?


Keeping school lunch biometrics in perspective - If schools are unable to keep data private, biometric template information is the last thing that should concern parents.


Kenya botches biometric election ...which should surprise no one.



Older posts that made relevant by this week's biometrics news...

Schools should consider biometrics to protect personal information


Biometrics and Biostatistics Revisited


The challenges confronting any new biometric modality


Biometrics & ID infrastructure: Perfect is the enemy of good

Africa round-up

SOUTH AFRICA: S.Africa eyes biometric crackdown on truant teachers (Modern Ghana) 


GHANA: National Health Insurance Scheme to introduce biometric ID cards (Ghana Business News)


NIGERIA: Plateau state government has discovered 6000 ghost workers (The Nation) 


LIBYA: New biometric passport officially revealed (Libya Herald)

A couple of municipal fingerprint time-and-attendance deployments going badly

INDIA: SDMC staff misusing biometric attendance system (Jagran Post)

According to the sources, most of the Municipal Corporation staff has given their fake thumb impressions to their colleagues who mark their attendance in their absence. Some workers raised the issue before the higher authorities but all the efforts went in vain.

SOUTH AFRICA: Council pays for unused system (Independent Online)

The costs are mounting, yet an electronic time management system installed to provide efficiency and control in the Hibiscus Coast municipality, almost three years ago, has still not been used. The biometric system which reads the fingerprints of workers to record what time they start and finish, was supposed to replace the current manual attendance register.

A lot of biometric ID management installations come down to managerial, rather than technical, challenges. This is especially true for biometric time-and-attendance systems.

Technically, biometric time-and-attendance systems are pretty straightforward but they can't manage a business all by themselves. An organization that wants to maximize its Return on Investment in biometric ID management systems, will view the technology as a tool supporting able managers, not as a substitute for managerial skill.


For similar thoughts and other examples, see:
Business Management & Biometric Time-and-Attendance (I took the two paragraphs just above from this one);

Good Help is Hard to Find;

UK pays £22.5 million for 'questionable' Democratic Republic of Congo election; and

Technology and Management working together can help improve public payments system

Better ID technology means more effective humanitarian assistance

South Sudan: Modern Technology Helps Meet the Needs of Refugees (All Africa)

Technology is changing all spheres of life, including humanitarian interventions. In South Sudan, UNHCR is using satellite imagery, interactive mapping, digital fingerprinting and text messaging to strengthen refugee protection, help the most vulnerable and reach out to refugees in urban areas.

UNHCR is conducting the first biometric registration exercise in South Sudan using digital fingerprinting technology. The nearly 200,000 refugees had been registered in standard databases, but biometrics will help to identify refugees more quickly so they can receive better assistance.

Much more at the link. Better ID tech makes effective delivery of nutrition and health services easier.

South Africa to modernize border

Plan for new border agency at ‘advanced stage’ (Business Day)

"Many countries have taken steps to ensure that there is integrated management of borders to prevent traffic in illicit goods and passage of illegal foreign nationals," she said. "We are developing a white paper that will be presented to the Cabinet. The agency will ensure greater co-ordination and better border management."

Addressing the media for the first time since she took over the portfolio from Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Ms Pandor said her department was on track with its modernisation processes, which included upgrading IT infrastructure; live capture systems for identity documents, passports, permits and visas; and the new national population register system that would carry records of births and citizens.

Africa round-up

CAMEROON: Biometric Registration - 4,501 Registered in South West Region


GAMBIA: IEC Presents Report at the National Assembly


GHANA: National Health Insurance Authority to issue instant biometric IDs soon


SOUTH AFRICA: Harsh jail time for fake marriages


KENYA: Canada, Kenya finalize deal to supply Kenya with voting kits

South Africa leading the way on government payments to individuals

Social Security And Welfare Payments Go Biometric (Fast Company)

In order to receive government aid, South Africans now have to get biometric finger and voice scans. It's high tech, cuts down on fraud, saves the government money... and is coming to the United States sooner than you'd think.

MasterCard is playing a large role in the South African effort...

SecurLinx Named Tier 1 Platinum Partner by iPulse Systems

Press Release:

SecurLinx Corporation joins forces with iPulse Systems to provide best in class solutions forbiometric access control in North and South America.

Morgantown, WV September 19, 2012

SecurLinx Corporation has been awarded Tier 1 Platinum Partner status for North America by iPulse Systems of Kempton Park, South Africa. SecurLinx-Brasil will enjoy the same designation for South America. The partnership will enable SecurLinx to integrate the iPulse product line into its access control middleware solutions. “Customers at the high end of security require an end-to-end solution including hardware and software that is completely integrated into their existing information technology infrastructure," stated Barry Hodge, CEO of SecurLinx. “We evaluated a number of potential suppliers and found iPulse to offer the most robust and interoperable solution available today.” The integration process has been completed and the systems are available for immediate delivery in both markets. The scalable solution is cost effective for a single door and capable of managing access for the largest facility or enterprise.

Gary Chalmers, CEO of iPulse Systems added, “As a specialist manufacturer of biometric hardware, iPulse Systems always looks for partners with an innovative and aggressive approach to high level integration into their software solutions when launching into a new market. SecurLinx have created a seamless solution that provides localized content for our internationally competitive hardware solutions.” “The iPB platform is robust, intelligent and extremely cost effective," continued Chalmers, who also added “We believe this combination of biometric hardware and software offers the best price to performance ratio available in the market today.”

About SecurLinx:

A wholly owned subsidiary of SecurLinx Holding Corporation (FRA: S8X) and located in Morgantown, West Virginia, SecurLinx is an advanced technology and software development company. The Company offers middleware products and systems applied to information sharing, secure access, and biometric identification. SecurLinx adds increased security, productivity, and seamless information management solutions in targeted markets where secure access to physical locations or information sharing networks is critical to the enterprise.

About iPulse Systems:

iPulse Systems is a South African based technology design company that specializes in developing biometric technology solutions at a hardware, firmware & SDK level for integration into best-of-breed existing software solutions, and where required, building niche market software solutions for specific vertical markets.

[End press release]

We're extremely pleased with the relationship we have built with the good people at iPulse and we look forward to what lies ahead.

South Africa: Serious about ID Management

20m ghost ID books in SA (IT Web)

“Stats SA reckons there are 28 million people aged over 21. The IEC [Independent Electoral Commission] has 23 million registered voters. However, the credit bureaus have 38 million people registered, meaning they have 38 million identities. Bear in mind that they might be over the age of 18, eligible to vote, and old enough to feature in the Stats SA data of those over 16.

“So that doesn't seem to tie up...

One year later: Uganda at the Little League World Series

Little League World Series fans shower Uganda with support (PennLive)

Nearly 7,300 people filed Volunteer Stadium Friday evening , many to cheer the first African team in the series.

“This is something,” manager Henry Odong said about the crowd after Uganda lost 9-3 to Panama.

“They were rooting for us even when we were losing,” he said. Because no one is here from Uganda, he said, he did not expect many people to be in the stands.

Uganda's next game is against Mexico today at 6:00 PM, EDT on ESPN.

...and this sheds a little more light on what happened last year (see post below).

Africa Ready for Debut in Little League World Series (NBC Sports)

Odong's team isn't the first team from Africa to qualify for the World Series, though it will be the first one to play in South Williamsport. A separate team from Kampala, Uganda was disqualified last year after the U.S. State Department denied visas because of discrepancies over players' ages and birth dates

But Uganda coach Richard Stanley, of New York, said the problem had to do with a coach last year falsifying documents. Stanley, a retired chemical engineer who owns a small stake of the Trenton Thunder Double-A minor league baseball team, has donated about $2 million to establish a Little League program and build a baseball academy in Uganda.

Stanley hopes the Lugazi team's success will help draw more boys and girls into Little League baseball and softball, which he hopes will eventually will be a stepping stone to help children get scholarships and go to college.

But that's a goal for years down the road. For now, Olaa and his teammates plan to just enjoy the simple pleasure of playing baseball.

Strange Things Afoot in Kenya Biometric Voter Registration Procurement

Following a flurry of activity that included overtures from U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the idea of renting registration kits from Ghana, and an electoral commission reluctant or unable to pick a bid, Kenya seems to be heading toward biometric voter registration for the elections scheduled for March 2013.

In order to move the project forward, two adjustments to the ordinary electoral process have been made.

The law mandating that the electoral register be completed 90 days prior to an election will be changed to allow the electoral commission an extra 45 days to complete its work. (Nairobi Star via All Africa)

The Cabinet yesterday accepted a request by the IEBC to acquire the biometric voter registration kits through a government to government arrangement. The Elections Act will also be amended to allow for the voter register to close 45 days to the polling date of March 4,2013 instead of the stipulated 90 days. These are among the decisions that were made during a meeting held between President Kibaki and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to resolve the crisis surrounding the procurement of the BVR kits which would have seen Kenyans revert to the manual voter registration system.

The amendment in the Elections Act will give the IEBC time to complete voter registration and allow scrutiny of the same and still keep within the elections time table it had drawn up. "The Government agreed to initiate amendments with the Elections Act to reduce the period for closure of the register from 90 days to 45 days so as to allow more time for voter registration," a statement issued after the meeting read.

The stated procurement process has been thrown out the window. (Capital FM via All Africa)

MPs want Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Eugene Wamalwa to explain the criteria used by the Cabinet to select a Canadian firm to supply Biometric Voter Registration kits ahead of next year's general election.

Ikolomani MP Boni Khalwale said the move amounted to the government taking over the procurement of the BVR kits from the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission.
...
The commission cancelled the tender for the supply of 9,750 BVR kits on Wednesday following immense public outcry on the manner the tender had been awarded. In announcing the cancellation, the commission said the two lowest bidders did not meet the due diligence requirements while the other two firms who met the due diligence including Symphony Limited, were above budget.

The company, which was second-placed in the tender bid, said it had fallen victim to "unknown intrigues."

The Indian firm 4G Identity Solutions which had bid the lowest said it would respect the decision by the IEBC to cancel the tender. However, the firm appealed to the commission to rethink the cancellation since it would negatively impact them.

The Public Procurement and Disposal Act 2005 allows the IEBC to terminate the process before it awards the contract. In such case, the bidders cannot seek court intervention.

Apart from 4G and Symphony of Kenya, other companies shortlisted for the tender were Face Technologies of South Africa and Ontrack Innovations of Israel.

For a summary chronology:

1. IEBC solicits proposals

2. IEBC narrows list to four providers

3. For whatever reason, IEBC can't choose among them.

4. IEBC cancels the project foreclosing any recourse to the bidders who followed the IEBC's instructions.

5. Hilary Clinton offers Kenya free biometric registration kits.

6. IEBC rejects the offer citing (unstated) political implications that would have arisen from such a donation, and a lack of time to complete the process.

7. IEBC makes a request of the Cabinet to acquire biometric registration kits through a government to government arrangement (Ghana, perhaps).

8. Laws will be changed to ensure that there's enough time.

9. Vendors scratch heads.

10. Still, nobody is sure where the kits will come from.

That's kind of a mess.

New biometric payment cards for South African social grant recipients offer greater security and convenience

More Than 2.5 Million MasterCard Debit Cards Issued to Social Welfare Beneficiaries in South Africa (Press Release) 

The new system is dramatically reducing SASSA’s operating costs. Until now, it has cost SASSA between R26 ($3.25) and R35 ($4.38) per grant to pay beneficiaries. Under the new agreement, disbursement costs will be capped at R16.50 ($2.07) per payment, enabling the agency to save up to R3bn ($375m) in operating costs over the next five years. This means that the agency will be able to spend its budget allocation more effectively in the future, making a meaningful difference in the lives of more South Africans.
“The early success of the project rollout affirms MasterCard’s vision to create a world beyond cash, as electronic payments using debit MasterCards opens up a world of financial inclusion for many South Africans who have previously not had access to banking products,” says Dries Zietsman, Country Manager, MasterCard South Africa.

“With over 2.5 million cards already issued since rollout in March 2012, it is clear that the cards are already being widely accepted by beneficiaries who are realising the benefits of a cashless environment,” he concludes.