Upgrading ID cards a sensitive affair, so get supplier for each component

What you need to know:

  • The manner in which the IEBC voter registration kits were procured was opaque, confused, and rife with intrigues and mischief.

Given the importance of the ID, its integrity is vital. It should be impossible to copy or duplicate an ID or to issue counterfeit IDs.

Yet the Nation recently carried out investigations, which showed that corruption enables foreigners to acquire genuine Kenyan IDs.

Since 2008, the government has made several attempts to upgrade the ID to a more secure version with a memory chip.

The smart ID has an electronic memory chip that contains encrypted data, making it difficult to duplicate.

A project to issue smart IDs with integrity requires planning and goodwill from all players. Democracy demands that the government informs citizens about its plans.
Jubilee government

The Jubilee government should start by allaying fears. Cord has already laid the groundwork to claim that the 2017 elections will be rigged using the new smart IDs. Jubilee is not being smart by announcing plans to issue IDs to 12-year-olds, while Cord is expressing suspicions.

The national ID is not merely an identification document; it also serves as proof that the holder has transited from childhood to responsible citizen.

The government intends to use the IEBC voter registration kits to collect biometric data (fingerprints and facial images), etc. This should save money, but it should be ascertained that the IEBC kits are able to capture and record the data with the requisite resolution and accuracy for ID purposes.

The manner in which the IEBC voter registration kits were procured was opaque, confused, and rife with intrigues and mischief. We were told it was a government-to-government deal with Canada; the kits came from France.

FOUR MAJOR PARTS

There are four major components of a smart ID; the registration kits, the blank smart cards, the central biometric database with a capability of detecting duplicates and the card personalisation system.

To procure such a complex system, it would be prudent to engage a competent project management team and procure the system components separately. This approach will discourage the wheeler dealers from meddling.

The major system components are available from very few manufacturers. There are only two reputable ones who can supply blank smart cards; only three who can supply central a large scale Automatic Fingerprint Identification System, which can handle a data base of 20 million ten prints (ten fingerprints), and search the data base with a reasonable accuracy, (the best systems can only manage 98 per cent accuracy).

An open tender is not pragmatic since every bidder will ultimately have to procure from one of the few manufacturers. Procurement through direct RFQ to the manufacturer would be more pragmatic.

BEN NJENGA. Nairobi