Botswana March 2006 |
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| E-Passports in 3 months, (Echo, 2006-03-02):-In an attempt to address the issue of stolen passports and fight identity theft in the Botswana, the government is planning to introduce machine-readable passports in three to four months, assistant minister of labour and home affairs, Oliphant Mfa has told Echo. This follows last year's announcement by government that it was in the process of finalising the Information and Communication Technology Policy. "As it is, we are already behind schedule. More than ever there is a greater need to protect Batswana in a situation where immigration procedures are conducted manually at our border gates," Mfa said. The delay was caused by AST Botswana's application against the awarding of the 2001 tender. The court of appeal has set aside a ruling by the High Court ruling paving the way for the tender to computerise immigration entry points to pass onto AST Botswana, now known as Research Solutions Integrated. AST-Botswana bid at P76 million while the Department of Immigration and Citizenships budget was P52 million. The failed bid by IBS-IT was at P36 million. Now it is up to the government to decide if there will be another tender for the introduction of the system as soon as consultations are done. "The technology has already changed by now and we have to start all over again. However, we are still consulting within government about what we can do about this situation," the assistant minister said. Until the results of the consultation are out, the system for processing people passing through Botswana's borders is yet to be decided upon, depending on the technology the ministry will choose. "Of course there will be changes that have to be introduced to our passports and it will cost the government to introduce the equipment. The change may be in the way we paste passport photographs, but at the moment nothing will change until the public is informed," he said. It is not known yet which system Botswana will use for its passport, but elsewhere, 3D face recognition is becoming a popular option for the use of biometric identifiers. The smart passports are a result of heightened global security need that prompted the International Civil Aviation Organisation to put up a deadline of 2015 for passports to be equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips. The plan has been adopted globally with 188 countries participating. The United States led the way in the use of automatic identification technology in passports after the 9/11 events. The first biometric passports were issued to British diplomats last November and trials have taken place in Paris and Washington. In January, the US launched a second test of its electric passport initiative. The smart passport tests were also carried out in San Francisco International Airport, Changi Airport in Singapore and Sydney Airport in Australia. Tests for the e-passports carrying biometric identification technologies ended in April. By October this year, the US government would have implanted the chips in all US passports. It is believed through the tests, information to help countries develop their respective e-passports will be gathered. Advantages of the advanced biometric 3D-IR security and identification solutions: it takes both 2D and 3D photos with more biometrically information than any other system; by adding an infrared photo, which is one of the patented part of the GCS technology makes it possible to have even more information about the person, e.g. illness, etc; no special white or infrared facial illumination required - ambient light is sufficient for authorisation decisions; it does not involve any person directly in the process. The photos are taken automatically, and do not require any interaction on the parties; hands-free operation - unlike fingerprint or hand-print scanners, the camera doesn't come into physical contact with the user and doesn't become contaminated by body oils or other particles; record of unauthorised users - unauthorised users automatically has their photo recorded (Other biometric systems, such as fingerprint scanners, may actually capture a record of an unauthorised attempt, but the fingerprint requires special training to decipher. An image of a face, however, can be readily interpreted by anybody); continuous monitoring - no other biometric system can provide an ongoing monitoring function; very high accuracy. | |
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp |