IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

The BioP@ss project, funded through the EUREKA micro-electronics cluster MEDEA+, has developed advanced chip cards and embedded software for next-generation biometrics-enhanced passports and identity cards as well as access to pan-European public services. Contactless card scanning and very high speed data interfacing will reduce queues at airports and frontier posts while boosting European security. The technology will improve passengers safety while reducing government administration costs and simplifying access to public pan-European electronic services for citizens. The elements are already being incorporated in systems to meet air travel security standards from 2014.

Increasing the availability of digital identity around the world was a priority before the pandemic, and with immunity passports and e-government systems being established, digital ID is a common thread in many of the top stories from around the biometrics industry this week.

Daon’s solution was chosen by a second major airline and iProov has been working with the UK government, while Yoti and Onfido announced online identification market successes, among recent examples.

FacePhi’s facial recognition technology will be featured in an innovative decentralized identity project in South Korea. The project is being carried out in collaboration with City Labs, which has been asked to turn the island of Jeju into a smart city with a unified identity framework.

Once the smart city is up and running, Jeju residents and visitors will be able to create and store a secure digital identity in a wallet on their mobile device. The IDs will be based on blockchain technology, and could be presented as proof of identity at any businesses or establishment that is part of the smart city. For example, people could use the IDs to board public transit, access government services, or to gain entry to some private establishments.

Estonia has ordered the shutdown of its vaunted online government service because of the “real threat” of e-identity theft for hundreds of thousands of citizens.

Hundreds of thousands of Estonians will be locked out of the country’s digital services from midnight on Friday due to a security issue.

Tapani Puisto, Service Manager at the State Treasury's Government IT Shared Service Centre (Valtion IT-palvelukeskus - VIP, in Finnish), said: "The service was the first major project which had been launched by the Government IT Shared Service Centre. Since those first days of the service user numbers have increased 50-fold. Whereas at the beginning there were only a few [participating] municipalities, now there are over a hundred and more are coming all the time."

The newly-established company has two Estonian and three Finnish founders who all used the ID-cards of their countries to create a company which is located in Tallinn and deals with the wholesale of electronic and telecommunications appliances and their parts. The founders of the company did not have to leave their desks to get the company officially registered in Estonia.

Der Chef der finnischen Polizei hat sich für die systematische Erfassung und Speicherung der Fingerabdrücke aller Finnen ausgesprochen. Polizeichef Mikko Paatero sagte diese Woche in einem Interview mit der Tageszeitung "Aamulehti", ein derartiges Register wäre bei Ermittlungen und bei der Vorbeugung schwerer Verbrechen "ein vorzügliches Werkzeug".

The number of applications that make use of the SuisseID has increased to over 220 within one year. About half of these services are provided by towns and municipalities, where the inhabitants no longer have to worry about business hours thanks to their SuisseID. A large part of eGovernment transactions may be processed online 24 hours, 7 days a week.

Many Indians, especially the poor, don't have any ID, which makes it increasingly difficult for them to be full participants in a society that is rapidly modernizing. But a new project aims to fix that.

"We still have a large number of people in India who don't have any acknowledgment of existence by the state," says Nandan Nilekani, who heads a project that is part of the Unique Identification Authority. "And because they don't have any piece of paper or documents which says who they are, they get left out [and] can't get entitlements."

According to Frost & Sullivan, the new French smart ID card is supposed to protect against identity theft and offers a new way to interact with administration services. However, to open a digital world for French citizens, the Government has to focus on deploying smart card readers.

Identity theft and identity fraud are terms used to refer to crimes in which someone fraudulently gets and uses another person's personal data, “typically for economic gain,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The French Interior Ministry claims that there are 80,000 cases of identity theft in France annually. To lower the risk of identity theft, the government plans to move from driver’s licenses and national ID cards to an eID smart card.

The new French smart ID card is supposed to protect against identity theft and offers a new way to interact with administration services. However, to open a digital world for French citizens, the Government has to focus on smart card readers’ deployment.

Abolishing the cards and associated register was one of the first pieces of legislation introduced to Parliament by the coalition Government.

But the cost of cancelling the contracts topped £2.25 million, with up to another £400,000 being spent on decommissioning the systems and destroying the personal data, Mr Green said.

The proposition, brought forward by a non-parliamentary initiative boasts a 130,000-signature petition in its support, Trend.az reports.

Eight opposition parties came together to sign the proposal, which, if passed, will help the nation determine the exact number of voters involved in the upcoming election.

The new ID card will contain all personal data on the security chip that can be accessed over a wireless connection.

The new card allows German authorities to identify people with speed and accuracy, the government said. These authorities include the police, customs and tax authorities and of course the local registration and passport granting authorities.

Around 60 million of the new ID cards, which contain fingerprint scans and a six-digit PIN digital signature, will be introduced for all citizens aged 16 and over over the next 10 years.

The Electoral Commission (EC) has issued directives for the replacement of lost Voter Identification Cards with a warning to the electorates who have lost their ID Cards against registering in the on-going Limited Biometric Voter Registration Exercise.

"Electorates seeking to replace lost Voter ID cards are required to pay a replacement fee of GHC5.00 into the EC's Bank Account - number 1161130000275 - at the Boundary Road Branch of the Ghana Commercial Bank," it said.

Mr Oppong Kyekyeku said this during the election of Chairmen for the Essikado-Ketan and Sekondi Sub-Metropolitan District Councils at Sekondi.

He said biometric registration would prevent multiple registrations and that the problem of minors registering would have to be checked at the registration centres.