While the ebola virus continues to devastate Western Africa, the rollout of biometric IDs is all but completely ignored in the media, but it could cause even greater devastation as the world marches towards a totalitarian surveillance police state.
Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana all have cards, while others are either in the process or have some form of biometrics in another area, e.g. banking security.
The following blog post by the Securiport company puts biometrics into perspective regarding ebola from the view point of a biometrics company.
This article on India contains an Excel file with information about different countries and their usage of biometrics. Categories include medical use, government ID, online banking & finance, etc.
Let’s Make a Citizen Out of You: The Rise of Biometric Identification in India
The following blurbs start with the country name, possibly a few words about the context of the article, and then the article title linked to the original article. The titles are pretty much enough to tell what’s going on for most.
Ghana
World Bank Provides US$29.15m to Build Robust National Identification System
World Bank Provides Us$97 Million For Etransform Project
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Concern for Guinea-Bissau from countries attending a biometric ID conference for West Africa (ECOWAS).
West Africans to have common biometric ID card
Guinea Bissau Opts for Secure National ID Card to Combat Fraud
Ivory Coast
Immigration systems. (Sierra Leone, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Equatorial Guinea)
The Role of Biometrics In Containing Ebola
Kenya
Biometric registration of Kenya’s public servants begins, absentees will be considered ‘ghosts’
Kenya: Civil Servants’ Biometric Registration Kicks Off in Tharaka Nithi County
Anne Waiguru: Biometric listing a win-win solution
Mauritania
MAURITANIA: A SINGLE INTEGRATED SYSTEM
Mauritius
Mauritius government to issue smart ID cards
Mali
THE NINA CARD: A TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGE, AN INDUSTRIAL SUCCESS
UN doing biometric scanning of people.
2014 UNHCR regional operations profile – North Africa
Malawi
Fingerprinting for microloans. No government ID.
Fingerprints for finance: Improving micro lending in Africa
Mozambique
Mozambique Driver License Program.
Mozambique Deal Expands African Adoption of Digimarc Secure ID Solutions
Namibia
Understanding Biometrics…Information Fusion For Multimodal Biometrics
Namibia: Enhanced Banking Solution By Namibian Biometric Systems
Namibia’s Biometric Systems’ Banking Solution
Nigeria
Launch of MasterCard-branded National e-ID for Nigerians and Implementation Issues
Nigeria launches new biometric ID card – brought to you by Mastercard
SecureID, Sterling Bank partner to drive financial inclusion in Nigeria
Compulsory.
Kano Inaugurates ID Card Project
Republic of the Congo
First Biometric ID Card Produced in the Republic of Congo
Rwanda
Registration for foreign residents.
South Africa
South Africa: Biometric Smart ID Cards – Dumb Idea
Online fingerprint verification.
Banks now verify your identity online
That’s a decent list, but does not include biometric passports, which includes most countries in the world anyways and is completely uninteresting in comparison.
The main pushers are biometrics companies, financial institutions, banks, the IMF, United Nations, etc. You’ll see the usual suspects pop up again and again. If you read through many articles, you may have noticed that Dr Risco Mutelo came up repeatedly. Again, more industry shilling.
It seems like Africa is the testbed for biometric IDs for now. Expect the rollout elsewhere in the world shortly. Or rather, dread the rollout elsewhere.
Here’s an excellent comment on biometric identification:
Cheers,
Ryan
