According to a statement from Siemens the distribution of the cards has already begun. The project is worth about €20m. The ID cards include the owner's fingerprint and data stored on a barcode. It is matched against a civil register database based on Oracle 9i.
Staff are taking the fingerprints, photos and signatures of citizens at 146 permanent and 20 temporary offices around the country.
Siemens is operating the system, training users and running a helpdesk for the civil servants dealing with the public.
"With this e-government solution, Bosnia-Herzegovina is following the international trend of integrating biometrics into ID cards," said Peter Blaschke, segment manager government at Siemens.
The ministry aims to replace the 4m paper documents with cards by the end of 2004.
Quelle: Kablenet, 03.12.2003
