The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is moving forward with its plans to use biometric technology to identify and track refugees, and has selected a vendor for the project. Accenture, an international technology services provider, has won out in the competitive tendering process and will oversee the implementation of the technology in a three-year contract.

The UNHCR will use Accenture’s Biometric Identity Management System (BIMS) for the endeavor. BIMS can be used to collect facial, iris, and fingerprint biometric data, and will also be used to provide many refugees with their only form of official documentation. The system will work in conjunction with Accenture’s Unique Identity Service Platform (UISP) to send this information back to a central database in Geneva, allowing UNHCR offices all over the world to effectively coordinate with the central UNHCR authority in tracking refugees.

Starting with a pilot project in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi, the program has blossomed over the last couple of years to provide services in refugee camps in Thailand and Chad, with over 220,000 people identified in the two countries so far. It’s an ambitious project, but Accenture has experience with large-scale biometric system initiatives, having helped the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Biometric Identity Management with a major border control project, for example. This latest endeavor will see the company’s technology used in important humanitarian efforts – and in fact it seems to have already helped hundreds of thousands.

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May 19, 2015 – by Alex Perala)

The post UN Agency Selects Accenture for Refugee Biometrics Project appeared first on FindBiometrics.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has completed its rollout of a biometric identification system for refugees in Thailand. The system has now provided identification for almost 110,000 refugees, including many from Myanmar.

The project was undertaken with the cooperation of the Royal Thai Government as well as NGOs supporting the UNHCR, and uses Accenture’s Biometric Identity Management System (BIMS) as its central technological platform. Its aim is essentially to provide a more reliable means of identification for the many tens of thousands of refugees, which helps both the refugees themselves and the government and agencies trying to assist and manage the refugee population. The irises and fingerprints of each refugee are scanned for enrolment into the system and issuance of an individual smart card containing important biographical data and photographs – and the ID card can be reissued at any time if it is lost or damaged.

While Thailand represents the first site of what is expected to be an expanding biometric identification program, the UNHCR did perform an extensive and successful pilot project in Malawi. Now, the agency is urging other governments to adopt the system, perhaps most urgently in Malaysia, where many of the Rohingya minority refugees from Myanmar are now fleeing.

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July 2, 2015 – by Alex Perala

The post UN’s Biometric Refugee ID Rollout Starts in Thailand appeared first on FindBiometrics.

United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed called on the Nigerian government to centralize its collection of citizens’ biometric data, reports News Agency of Nigeria. Mohammed raised the issue with Nigerian delegates at a session of the UN Commission on Population and Development in New York, telling them that the country has “a multiplicity of platforms that are doing a biometrics on everything; that is not efficient.”

Mohammed’s concerns echo those of Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari, who suggested in 2015 that the country’s National Population Commission could act as a centralized administrator of all collected biometric data. Buhari’s concerns themselves echo those of his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, who had called for the same measure to ameliorate the problem.

Biometric identification has only become more popular in the country over the past year or so, with a major MNO registering customers’ biometrics the National Association of Nigerian Students enacting a plan to issue biometric ID cards to members. And just this month, Safran announced that it had been contracted to upgrade the National Identity Management Commission of Nigeria’s biometric identification platform.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

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April 7, 2017 – by Alex Perala

The post United Nations Official Calls on Nigeria to Centralize Biometrics Management appeared first on FindBiometrics.

“Essentially, it’s meant to offer a means of identifying registered individuals by their biometric traits, without unnecessarily revealing other personal information, with trusted parties to the blockchain system assuring credibility.”

ID2020 held its Platform for Change Summit at the United Nations today, with Accenture, Microsoft, and Avanade showcasing a new identity platform based on blockchain and biometrics.

The aim of all this is to help deliver officially recognized identity to the 1.1 billion people in the world lacking such documentation. ID2020 is a public-private partnership in support of UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.9, which is concerned with bringing about officially recognized identity for everyone, a critical issue for matters like accessing government services and migrating between countries. Its goal is to enable digital identity for everyone in the world by 2030.

To that end, Accenture has taken the opportunity to launch a prototype identity system based on the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance’s “permissioned” blockchain protocol. It runs on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, and is designed to use fingerprint and iris biometrics, among others, for identification in a decentralized manner. Essentially, it’s meant to offer a means of identifying registered individuals by their biometric traits, without unnecessarily revealing other personal information, with trusted parties to the blockchain system assuring credibility.

The system’s focus on biometric identification should help to ensure compatibility with the UN refugee agency’s increasingly biometric approach; and it was announced along with the launch of the ID2020 Alliance, a consortium poised to support the solution’s development.

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June 19, 2017 – by Alex Perala

The post ID2020 Supporters Create Identity Solution Based on Blockchain, Biometrics appeared first on FindBiometrics.

It’s World Refugee Day, a time to bring focused attention to a complex issue that is increasingly in the news. According to the UNHCR, the UN agency most directly concerned with refugee issues, one in every 113 people in the world are refugees from war or political violence, with an estimated total of 65 million displaced globally.

Root causes vary, and prospective solutions will need to be as complex as the political, social, economic, and ecological forces causing statelessness. But even here, biometric technology can play an important role, and is increasingly being embraced by policy makers and other stakeholders in dealing with refugee issues.

Just this week, a new joint project involving Accenture and Microsoft was announced that aims to leverage biometrics and blockchain to establish a trusted identity system for the undocumented:

ID2020 Supporters Create Identity Solution Based on Blockchain, Biometrics

As for the UNHCR, it has been pioneering the use of biometric technologies in helping to manage refugee populations in several hotspots around the world, and has lately been stepping up its advocacy of this approach:

Better to Manage Refugees Than Refuse Them: UNHCR

Refugees in Chad Benefit from Biometric IDs

UN Refugee Agency Launches New Biometric ID Cards, Mobile App

Meanwhile, biometric technology has been helping authorities in Germany to deal with Europe’s ongoing migration crisis:

Speech Recognition Tech to Help German Authorities Identify Origin Countries of Refugees

DERMALOG to Highlight Tech’s Role in Refugee Crisis at CeBIT

Such technology certainly isn’t a cure-all, but it’s playing an increasingly important and valuable role in mitigating a serious issue that impacts the whole world.

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June 20, 2017 – by Alex Perala

The post BRIEF: How Biometric Tech is Helping Refugees appeared first on FindBiometrics.

Uganda has become the latest country to launch a biometric refugee identification program in collaboration with the UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency.

With additional assistance from the World Food Programme, government authorities will use fingerprint readers and iris scanners to scan the country’s 1.4 million refugees, many of whom have recently arrived from the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. The plan is to have six teams process about 18,000 people per day in refugee settlements and urban areas, with the aim of completing the process to be completed in September.

The effort comes after Uganda’s prime minister issued a directive demanding the authentication of refugee data, and as with the UNHCR’s other recent biometric refugee tracking programs, the aim is to ensure that resources aimed at the refugees are able to reach those in need, and to effectively track and serve refugees more generally. As UNHCR Representative Bornwell Kantande explained in the organization’s announcement of the project, “We want to have better services for all refugees and host communities, and the basis of that is verification.”

The program’s implementation reflects the UNHCR’s growing enthusiasm for such biometric solutions. The organization partnered with government authorities in Ethiopia in autumn to establish a Biometric Identity Management System in that country, and more recently announced that it would work on a biometric refugee settlement program with government authorities in Nigeria. The UNHCR says that its new Uganda project represents the biggest in its history.

Source: UNHCR

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March 2, 2018 – by Alex Perala

The post In Uganda, UNHCR Launches Biggest Biometric Refugee Project Yet appeared first on FindBiometrics.

“The collection of biometric data is a common practice for government authorities in Nigeria…”

Nigeria’s federal government is using biometrics to monitor foreigners in the country.

As AllAfrica reports, the revelation came by way of Minister of Interior Lt. Gen. AbdulRahman Danbazau at a panel discussion held during the opening of the International Press Institute Congress in Abuja. Danbazau suggested that the biometric data would allow authorities monitor the movements of migrants and to see who has overstayed their visas. He also framed the move as a means of accommodating free travel between members of ECOWAS, an economic partnership between numerous west African states.

Danbazau did not indicate what kinds of biometric data are being collected, but said that it will be managed by the Nigeria Immigration Service.

The collection of biometric data is a common practice for government authorities in Nigeria – perhaps too common, as officials with the UN and OPEC and even the Nigerian President have decried the overlapping and duplicate biometric registration efforts of various government agencies over the last couple of years. But given that this latest project would seem to concern only non-citizens, it may not exacerbate the duplication issue anyway.

Source: AllAfrica

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June 25, 2018 – by Alex Perala

The post Nigerian Officials Registering Foreigners’ Biometrics appeared first on FindBiometrics.

“It’s meant to help UN members cooperate with each other and police organizations like Interpol, which has been calling for the increased sharing of biometric intelligence – and recently raised alarm among civil rights advocates with its own voice identification system designed to trawl criminal databases and social media accounts.”

The United Nations is taking measures to bring a bit of oversight to the expanding use of biometrics in the fight against terrorism, launching a reference guide called the “United Nations Compendium of Recommended Practices for the Responsible Use & Sharing of Biometrics in Counter Terrorism”. The guide was launched the High-level Conference of Heads of Counter-Terrorism Agencies held June 29.

It’s the product of a collaboration between the UN’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) and the Biometrics Institute, which put together an international team of experts from a number of fields including law enforcement, border control, privacy and data protection, and so on. It’s meant to help UN members cooperate with each other and police organizations like Interpol, which has been calling for the increased sharing of biometric intelligence – and recently raised alarm among civil rights advocates with its own voice identification system designed to trawl criminal databases and social media accounts.

In a statement announcing the new reference guide, the Biometrics Institute explained that it “provides technical implementation considerations and good practice guidance, including the need to protect privacy and personal data, and highlights the importance of understanding the potential for error in the collection of biometric data.”

The Biometrics Institute also indicated that the next phase of its collaboration with the CTED will entail regional workshops, “starting with high priority countries that most need to start adopting biometric technologies.”

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July 3, 2018 – by Alex Perala

The post UN Launches Best Practices Guide for Biometrics in Counter-Terrorism appeared first on FindBiometrics.

The Somali government is aiming to build a biometric national ID program, and is looking to Pakistan and the World Bank for help.

Dubbed the Somali National Identity Program, it’s actually envisioned as a program similar to Aadhaar, the biometric national ID program used by Pakistan’s arch-rival India. The program would enable citizens to access government services, obtain money through government subsidies, and confirm their identities in the private sector, among other applications.

It’s an ambitious aim for a country that has never had a centralized ID system for its citizens, and that’s part of the reason the Somali government has sought the help of Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), with which it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding. In implementing a national ID program in Pakistan, NADRA has had to overcome similar obstacles to those faced by Somalia’s authorities, and has some expertise to lend.

Meanwhile, the head of Somalia’s Digital ID Program, Dr. Nur Dirie Hersi Fursade, recently met with World Bank officials to go over the project. The World Bank has been emphasizing the importance of providing reliable identification to vulnerable and underserved populations, especially through its ID4D initiative, and so Dr. Nur suggested that the organization could provide backing to Somalia’s biometric ID project. It isn’t yet clear what, if anything, the World Bank is prepared to commit to, but with excitement over biometric ID on the rise thanks to Aadhaar and certain United Nations efforts, Somalia’s officials had a strong case to make.

Source: Radio Dalsan

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July 11, 2018 – by Alex Perala

The post Somali Gov’t Seeks Support for Biometric ID Program appeared first on FindBiometrics.

“The event also saw live demos of technologies including facial recognition, which is increasingly used by police around the world as a surveillance tool. “

The world’s biggest police organization is now officially delving into artificial intelligence and robotics.

The technologies were on display at the INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation last week, during a two-day event organized by the INTERPOL Innovation Centre and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute. The two-day event featured about 50 participants law enforcement, academia, and the private sector, and entailed discussions on how police agencies could use AI for a range of applications including virtual autopsies, resource optimization, autonomous patrol cars, and more. They even delved into distributed ledger technology, with respect to “blockchain-based traceability approaches that respect privacy,” according to a statement from INTERPOL.

The event also saw live demos of technologies including facial recognition, which is increasingly used by police around the world as a surveillance tool. This application in particularly has generated some heated controversy in the US and the UK in recent months; accordingly, INTERPOL’s event included discussions of “ethical challenges such innovations could present to police, such as ensuring AI is fair, explainable and transparent and balancing the need for security with the right to privacy.” INTERPOL says participants called for a follow-up meeting to focus on these issues.

It isn’t yet clear when that meeting will take place or which organizations it will involve, but as privacy advocates continue to resist government implementations of AI-driven technologies such as facial recognition, it will be in INTERPOL’s and its members’ interest to try to assuage ethical and privacy concerns. In the meantime, INTERPOL has organized another tech-focused forum for August, this time focused specifically on drones and how they can be understood as “a tool, a threat and a source of evidence.”

—

(Originally posted on Mobile ID World)

The post Facial Recognition, AI, Robotics Showcased at INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation appeared first on FindBiometrics.

With the “United Nations Compendium of Recommended Practices for the Responsible Use and Sharing of Biometrics in Counter-Terrorism” now officially published, the Biometrics Institute is preparing to spread the word.

The organization helped to author the guide in collaboration with the UN’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), with the aim of offering general guidelines to help UN members and police organizations work together responsibly to share biometric intelligence. The guide was issued on June 29th, effectively launching the next phase of work – propagating its messages.

To that end, the Biometrics Institute is going to participate in targeted regional workshops, which will allow the organization and CTED to reach out to states that don’t currently have the capacity to responsibly capture and share biometric data. In these workshops, the Biometrics Institute will provide expert consultants, and will promote its own Biometrics Institute Privacy Guidelines as complementary resources to the Compendium.

Moreover, the organization says “[t]here may also be opportunities for vendors to sponsor or attend workshops,” according to a statement announcing the initiatives. “After all, the goal is to put biometric systems in place in regions that need them; those regions will need help in choosing what to buy and will need to buy them from somewhere,” it added.

Details concerning the workshops have not been disclosed; but it’s possible more information will be forthcoming at the Biometrics Institute’s London Congress in October, which will be attended by CTED representatives Jean-Philippe Morange and Anne-Maria Seesmaa. The event will run from October 17th to 18th at the Grange Hotel St. Paul’s.

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August 17, 2018 – by Alex Perala

The post UN Biometrics Intel Guide Workshops May Present Opportunities for Vendors appeared first on FindBiometrics.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has repeatedly called for the adoption of biometric platforms that make it easier to manage refugee populations. Now, Distilled Identity and Emerge have forged a partnership to fulfill that request. The two companies have announced Homeward, a new platform that uses biometric data to create a self-sovereign identity for stateless refugees.

“Over one billion people lack a legal identity,” said David Shrier, the Founder and CEO of Distilled Identity. “We need to reinvent the system to better serve the poor and dispossessed.”

“Displaced people often face another challenge as they are unable to present themselves as valuable contributors to a host country,” added Lucia Gallardo, the Founder of Emerge. “Homeward’s focus on employability potential allows every claimant the opportunity to leverage untapped strengths and dispel the burden narrative by making a match.”

Homeward uses a combination of physical and behavioral biometrics to build a multilayered identity profile of each refugee. It then takes other variables like cultural preference and the local economy into consideration, seeking to place refugee families in an optimal location that will allow them to thrive after resettlement.

The Homeward pilot program will launch in April 2019 with a cohort of roughly 20,000 refugees. Half of those refugees have been displaced by the conflict in Syria, while the other half will be economic migrants from Central America and the Caribbean.

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January 23, 2019 – by Eric Weiss

The post Distilled Identity and Emerge Unveil New Refugee Identity Technology appeared first on FindBiometrics.

“Mobile biometrics can be the first step in unlocking opportunities for the previously unidentified in terms of financial services, healthcare, personal safety, and social programs.” – On Tim Tang, Management Consultant, Integrated Biometrics

Integrated Biometrics management consultant On Tim Tang was invited to speak to the United Nations last week in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Tang joined the company last year, serving as a management consultant tasked with shaping the company’s internal structures to promote continuous and long-term growth. And she brought her business expertise to a Women’s Day event held at United Nations headquarters on Friday – the Annual Women’s Empowerment and Youth Development Event.

In her talk, Tang participated in a panel discussion on the importance of including arts education in STEM academic programs.

In a statement announcing her participation in the UN event, Tang emphasized how biometric technologies can be used to empower women. “Mobile biometrics can be the first step in unlocking opportunities for the previously unidentified in terms of financial services, healthcare, personal safety, and social programs,” she said.

The news comes after Integrated Biometrics’ announcement toward the end of last year that its technology would be used by Nigerian government officials to enroll citizens in the country’s Bank Verification Number program, another example of how biometrics can be used for greater social inclusion and equity.

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March 11, 2019 – by Alex Perala

The post Integrated Biometrics Management Consultant Participates in UN Women’s Day Panel appeared first on FindBiometrics.

After a high-level tour of refugee centers in Bangladesh, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is more convinced than ever of the importance of biometric IDs for helping displaced people.

The visit was conducted by Volker Türk, the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at the United Nations’ refugee agency, who visited Bangladesh to assess the country’s situation with respect to its many Rohingya muslim refugees, who have fled neighboring Myanmar in the wake of genocidal persecution. UNHCR officials began experimenting with issuing the refugees biometric identity documents in 2017, on the basis that biometrics can help to reliably identify individuals even if they don’t have official, state-issued IDs on hand.

At this point, over 125,000 Rohingya refugees have been issued such biometric ID cards, and in a statement concerning his recent tour in Bangladesh, Türk asserted the cards’ importance to the displaced Rohingya, saying they “are important means to protect their identity and their right to return to Myanmar.”

“The Rohingya represent the largest group of stateless refugees in the world,” he said. “Many have never had proper identity documents. This is a big milestone in protecting their identity.”

In addition to helping to secure the refugees’ right to return to their homes, in Bangladesh the cards help individuals to access services and to receive humanitarian aid. The UNHCR has also been extending these same benefits to other refugee populations elsewhere in the world, with this biometric approach to identification now being normalized as a standard part of aid for displaced populations.

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March 26, 2019 – by Alex Perala

The post UNHCR Official Calls Biometric IDs ‘a Big Milestone’ in Refugee Aid appeared first on FindBiometrics.

The United Nations’ refugee agency has been vocal about the benefits of biometric identification for those in its charge for years, but recently the organization invoked this technology in its own defense.

The UNHCR was responding to an extensive investigative report from NBC alleging widespread corruption at the refugee agency. Usually this involves bribery in exchange for services that are meant to be free for displaced persons, but the corruption can also extend to identity fraud, with NBC reporting that in some cases, refugees who could not afford to bribe UNHCR officials to be resettled in a new country had their identities stolen and assigned to other refugees, allowing the latter to jump the queue.

In responding to the NBC report, the UNHCR vehemently insisted that the vast majority of its 16,000-member workforce comprised honest, committed professionals, and asserted that it has rigorous safeguards and disciplinary codes in place to deal with corruption and misconduct. And with regard to the issue of stolen identities, the UNHCR pointed specifically to its use of biometric registration – including iris and fingerprint scanning – for refugees.

“Biometric registration makes theft of identity virtually impossible and biometric screening of refugees is done at various stages of the resettlement process, including right before departure,” the agency asserted.

In previous communications, the UNHCR has tended to make the case for biometric registration by highlighting its benefits in terms of helping displaced persons to establish official identification for accessing services, and ensuring that government agencies are able to effectively manage refugee populations. But it’s now clear that the UNHCR’s use of biometric identification can help to protect refugees from itself, in the form of fraudsters in its ranks or unscrupulous contractors. The agency acknowledges that “it is impossible for UNHCR to root out ground level imposters,” but it insists that it’s taking measures to help neutralize them, and biometric technology is playing a key role in that effort.

Sources: NBC, UNHCR

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May 8, 2019

The post UNHCR’s Biometric IDs Help Protect Refugees from Itself appeared first on FindBiometrics.

“And as the UNHCR has previously outlined, the biometric ID cards themselves can help refugees to access critical services, and can be used for resettlement and potential repatriation.”

Well over a quarter million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have now been registered for biometric ID cards, the United Nations’ refugee agency has announced.

It’s the latest update from the UNHCR highlighting the benefits of biometric registration for refugees. Speaking at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic outlined the benefits of this process, explaining that the collection of refugees’ biometric and biographic data “provides national authorities and humanitarian organizations with a better understanding of the population and their needs,” and that it “will facilitate the planning of programmes and the targeting of assistance to where it is needed most”.

And as the UNHCR has previously outlined, the biometric ID cards themselves can help refugees to access critical services, and can be used for resettlement and potential repatriation. They can also help to thwart identity fraud, and could prove useful in reuniting families in the wake of disruptive storms, with Bangladesh’s monsoon season approaching.

Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh from neighboring Myanmar in large numbers since 2017, when genocidal attacks against the minority population began to ramp up. There are now over 900,000 displaced Rohingya living in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, and the UNHCR says it has registered over 270,000 of them in its Biometric Identity Management System. About four thousand refugees are registered per day, and the UNHCR’s Mahecic says its staff of 450 people “are working long hours with the goal of completing the process by late 2019.”

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May 21, 2019 – by Alex Perala

The post UNHCR Celebrates Biometric Registration of Over a Quarter of Bangladesh’s Rohingya Refugees appeared first on FindBiometrics.

FindBiometrics will be reporting live from ID4Africa next week, delivering breaking news and live audio interviews to keep our global readership informed about what’s happening in one of the world’s most exciting identity markets.

Over the past few years, ID4Africa has emerged as one of the identity industry’s most important events. The conference isn’t simply a humanitarian effort, but is aimed at fostering development in broader terms, bringing together African government leaders, United Nations officials, business executives, and other diverse stakeholders with the aim of helping the continent to leapfrog over traditional citizen ID approaches and embrace new identity solutions.

The first ID4Africa took place in Tanzania in 2015, with subsequent annual events in Rwanda, Namibia, and Nigeria. This year, it will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, and FindBiometrics will be reporting live from the event, delivering breaking news and live audio interviews to keep our global readership informed about what’s happening in one of the most exciting identity markets in the world.

The event is slated to run from June 18th to 20th, and we’re already starting to see some big announcements from biometrics specialists planning to attend. So stay tuned as we gear up for ID4Africa’s 2019 Annual Meeting, as more big developments are in the pipeline.

The post ID4Africa: We’re Bringing You Live Biometrics News Coverage Straight From Johannesburg appeared first on FindBiometrics.

FindBiometrics is in Johannesburg, reporting live from ID4Africa 2019, where the biometrics industry is convening to help realize the future of next-generation identity technology in Africa. All week we will be bringing you live audio interviews recorded on the exhibition floor with biometrics industry experts helping transform identity services across the continent.

Digital identity giant IDEMIA has been a major sponsor of ID4Africa since the event began five years ago, so it’s only appropriate that Peter O’Neill, President of FindBiometrics and Mobile ID World spoke with Antoine Grenier, the company’s Senior Vice President Africa Region, Public Security and Identity. Their conversation begins with Grenier discussing this year’s showcase of its global offerings, presenting civil management systems with a special focus on digital ID and border control. He goes on to share the company’s recent successes: a new contract for an identity card with Morocco, where 35 million people will be able to access online services; and a renewed contract working with Mauritania.

The conversation moves on to detail how IDEMIA is working to achieve long term goals, facilitating a paradigm in which identity is seen as a basic human right. Grenier cites the United Nations’ strategy to see that every human on earth has a way to prove their identity by 2030, and speaks to how IDEMIA is working in to make this goal a reality.

Listen to our full ID4Africa audio interview with Antoine Grenier, Senior Vice President Africa Region, Public Security and Identity, IDEMIA:

Stay tuned to FindBiometrics all week as we bring you more biometrics and mobile identity news straight from ID4Africa. Follow us on Instagram to see more pictures from the show floor and connect with us on Twitter for breaking news as it happens.

The post ID4Africa: IDEMIA SVP Antoine Grenier on Identity as a Basic Human Right [Audio] appeared first on FindBiometrics.

“The organization specifically highlighted the expansion of its Population Registration and Identity Management EcoSystem (PRIMES), an identity management tool that has now been deployed in 58 countries to register 10.5 million individuals.”

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has released a progress report on its Global Strategic Priorities (GSP) for 2018 and 2019, offering an update on its use of biometrics to improve record keeping and registration.

The organization specifically highlighted the expansion of its Population Registration and Identity Management EcoSystem (PRIMES), an identity management tool that has now been deployed in 58 countries to register 10.5 million individuals. Biometric technology is currently being used in 60 unique operations, with 7.2 million biometric records collected thus far.

According to the UNHCR, those records are vital because they help the organization identify areas of concern, which allows it to respond and allocate resources accordingly. The records also protect individual refugees. The creation of a unique biometric identity reduces the threat of identity fraud and makes it easier for people to access essential services like healthcare. For instance, the GSP report suggests that better registration practices and the issuance of birth certificates have lowered child mortality rates and the number of undocumented children more generally.

The use of biometrics has been particularly beneficial in Bangladesh, where more than 250,000 Rohingya refugees have been issued biometric identity cards. That number has doubled since March, suggesting that biometric technology can help process a large number of individuals and will be an increasingly important component of the UNHCR’s relief strategies moving forward.    

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June 21, 2019 – by Eric Weiss

The post UNHCR Says Biometric Registration is Integral to Refugee Relief Plans appeared first on FindBiometrics.

“The UNHCR has proven to be an enthusiastic proponent of biometric identification in recent years, deploying such technologies in major refugee camps and highlighting its utility in providing displaced individuals with a reliable form of official documentation.”

The United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) is looking for some expert assistance in its efforts to establish digital ID programs for displaced people. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has posted a notice that it is looking to hire one or more ‘Digital Identity Consultants’ to support its Data and Identity Management Service.

In keeping with the UNHCR’s demonstrated interest in using biometric technology to aid and manage refugee populations, the organization is calling for a consultant who can “contribute technical expertise to the development of multiyear projects on digital identity, including biometrics,” in support of the development of its Population Registration and Identity Management Ecosystem, or “PRIMES”. The UNHCR has proven to be an enthusiastic proponent of biometric identification in recent years, deploying such technologies in major refugee camps and highlighting its utility in providing displaced individuals with a reliable form of official documentation.

“Asylum seekers, refugees, internally displaced persons and returnees, UNHCR’s persons of concern (POCs) are at heightened risk of not having a legally recognized ID credential and, if they are unable to prove their identity, face additional obstacles to social and financial inclusion alongside other protection risks,” explained the UNHCR in its posting of the position. “Allowing States to use PRIMES tools, developing interoperability between PRIMES and State identity systems and facilitating the inclusion of POCs in States’ foundational identity systems are some of the approaches that can achieve this goal.”

As for the specifics of who the UNHCR is looking for, the United Nations agency lists among its minimum qualifications at least 13 years of relevant work experience or 11 years of experience with a post-graduate degree, including experience in developing Digital Identity projects with a focus on authentication, with experience in humanitarian or development work being preferred.

The agency’s efforts to find such an expert illustrate its growing interest in biometrics-driven digital identity technologies, which appear poised to play an increasingly important role in the United Nations’ efforts to aid refugees going forward.

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July 17, 2019 – by Alex Perala

The post UNHCR Seeks Help as Biometrics-driven ID Efforts Ramp Up appeared first on FindBiometrics.