IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

The European Commission has just launched a new public information portal www.europeanbiometrics.info on biometrics, to provide an online platform for information exchange, coordination and community building activities between users and producers in Europe.

The foreign worker card program was mandated by the Italian parliament in late 2004. This is the first order received by LaserCard for this new program. Most of the foreign worker cards will be valid for two years and then will need replacing if the cardholder wishes to continue to work legally in Italy while, a smaller percentage, expected to be about ten percent, will be valid for only one year before they need to be replaced. Deliveries of the new cards under the foreign worker ID program are scheduled to be completed in April, 2006.

The Labour government recently announced its plans to extend compulsory ID cards to skilled migrants from outside the European Union when their visas expire. In response to British citizens' resistance to ID cards, the government has been experimenting by enforcing compulsory ID cards on its migrant population instead.

While Britain is showing strong resistance, most European countries appear to be moving along with the practice of carrying ID cards, and more specifically, with the gradual introduction of electronic identity, or eID, cards.

He said the e-health program would be implemented to coincide with the launch of the second generation of e-ID cards, which would use microchips to hold owners’ personal data, including their health records.

The project, which was launched in February and targeted to be completed at the end of 2012, has been marred with technical glitches and corruption allegations. In a nutshell, it is a controversial and inefficient government project that lacked a solid grand design.

From the very substantial background of the program, Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi has claimed that the project is mandated by the Law on Population Administration. The government, as stipulated in Article 101, is obliged to develop a database of citizenship identity numbers (NIK) in five years.

The head of the Civil Registration Agency, Franky Mangatas Panjaitan, said that the city expected by the end of this year, all 6.4 million Jakartans eligible for the ID cards would join the program.

“We have assigned a single identity number to everyone in our database. All the people need to do is apply at the local subdistrict office,” Franky told The Jakarta Post.

If successful, the state hopes the initiative will pave the way for a secure national ID system, or e-KTP. The end game, however, must be to develop a more efficient bureaucracy and to cut red tape.

Raydonnyzar Moenek, a spokesman with the Ministry of Home Affairs, told the Jakarta Globe that the government would begin handing out the new cards, also known as E-KTPs, in 197 districts, mostly in Java and Bali.

The E-KTP is being hailed by the government as a step forward that will simplify bureaucratic processes and improve national security by being tougher to forge.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Friday said it is assisting Jamaica establish a liable identification system that will make it easier and cheaper for citizens and legal residents to prove their identity for a variety of transactions, from opening bank accounts to getting social services from government agencies.

The IDB said that by reducing transactional costs on identity verification, the National Identification System (NIDS) will help cut bureaucracy and improve the delivery of government services. Among other benefits, it will make it easier to access birth certificates, especially for mothers and persons with special needs.

The new biometric national ID smartcard for Morocco will be supplied by Idemia, which announced the deal to supply the e-ID cards for authentication to online services in support of the development of the country’s digital economy.

Under the contract signed with Morocco’s Direction Générale de la Sûreté Nationale (National Security Government Department – “DGSN”), Idemia will provide the cards for use with online services and transactions, along with a platform for secured digital identity online services. This will enable government agencies and private online service providers to tap into the new digital identity system to provide Moroccans with user-friendly, fast, and secure access that safeguards the privacy of their personal data on the e-ID cards, according to the announcement.

In a small village north-west of Bangalore, peasants queue for identities. Each man fills in a form with his name and rough date of birth, or gets someone who can read to do it for him. He places his fingertips on one scanner and stares at another. A photograph of his face is snapped. These images are uploaded to a computer. Within a few weeks he will have an identity number.

The Indian government is trying to give all 1.2 billion Indians something like an American Social Security number, but more secure. Because each “universal identity number” (UID) will be tied to biometric markers, it will prove beyond reasonable doubt that anyone who has one is who he says he is. In a country where hundreds of millions of people lack documents, addresses or even surnames, this will be rather useful. It should also boost a wide range of businesses.

"ID cards can now be activated to replace the e-Gate cards to ensure swift processing of passenger entry and exit through passport control throughout the country," said Major General Ahmad Nasser Al Raisi, director-general of the Central Operations Department at Abu Dhabi Police.

Briefing newsmen, NIMC Director-General, Mr Chris Onyemenam, said the gesture would ensure that the more than 100 million Nigerians without official identity cards were captured.

Onyemenam said the commission would register and issue a National Identity Number (NIN) and National Smart Card to every Nigerian from 16 years and above.

Throughout 2020, Identity Malta issued 34,157 new e-ID cards, of which 10,697 (31%) were issued in the new card format, the agency said in a statement.

Identity Malta had all hands-on deck during the global pandemic, in order to ensure that clients’ needs were seen to. In fact, the Agency issued 133 emergency travel documents and processed 568 urgent passport requests last year.

Throughout the pandemic, Identity Malta noticed a surge in government e-service activity, activating 76,754 new eID virtual accounts, which is an increase of 87% over 2019. Furthermore, the Agency responded to clients’ request to reset their virtual eID passwords, with 139,464 passwords being reset in 2020.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said yesterday the high number of residency applications marriages between Pakistanis and EU citizens from the Baltic states was a concern. He had asked his officials to examine as “a matter of urgency” the possibility of the deployment of biometric technology to all visa applications from Pakistan.

There were 1,894 applications for residency based on marriage to an EU citizen in 2010. Some 378 of these applications were made by Pakistanis, 172 were to Latvians and 39 to Lithuanians.

Department believed release of Dixon’s email would ‘misinform’ about public services card

The Data Protection Commissioner told the head of the Department of Social Protection last year that there was a risk the public services card (PSC) was expanding in scope and that this would turn it into “a form of national ID card”.

All farmers will be forced to apply for EU funds online from next year

Agriculture Minister Michael Creed has refused to rule out the prospect that controversial Public Services Cards (PSCs) will be required for more than a hundred thousand farmers to apply for EU payments.

Departments want to increase uptake and counteract ‘negative’ media coverage

The Government is to launch a €200,000 radio and online advertising campaign to promote the public services card and to address concerns reported in the media in recent months.

The Department of Public Expenditure and the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer are seeking tenders for a media strategy and creative campaign to encourage uptake of the card, particularly among young people and men of working age.

A new identity card to tackle social welfare fraud is to be rolled out on a phased basis, beginning this week.

4,000 people of working age will be issued with cards by the end of the year.

The card is the same size as a credit card, and it incorporates a biometric photo and signature, and electronically coded information.