COLOMBO –Sri Lanka is in the process of introducing an electronic National Identity Card (e-NIC), Public Security Minister Tiran Alles said, after delays in the India-funded Unique ID card project amid data privacy concerns.
The government has called for tenders and four foreign manufacturers with local partners have bid for the project, Alles said.
The move comes after the island nation called for fresh bids last month after President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government disqualified the two Indian bidders, Madras Security Printers (MSP) and Protein Technologies.
India has already given an advance aid of 450 million Indian rupees to President Wickremesinghe’s government to fund the digital ID project, which aims to collect biographic and biometric information, including facial, iris, and fingerprint data.
The decision to award the tender to print digital ID cards to an Indian firm has raised concerns over the data privacy of Sri Lankan citizens and the protection of personal data.
Some security analysts have raised concerns over data privacy with Indian companies being selected to print the IDs.
“That concern is still there. I will not want our data to go out to any other country,” Alles told a media briefing for foreign correspondents based in Colombo on Thursday (18).
The Department of Personal Registration which is in charge of issuing NICs comes under the purview of Alles’ Ministry of Public Security. But the Indian project is handled by the Ministry of Technology.
The Indian project is expected to store the personal data of every individual in a centralized system to issue identification cards as per the standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), government officials have said, to effective and efficient delivery of government services, financial inclusion, and poverty reduction.
An Indo-Sri Lanka Joint Project Monitoring Committee (JPMC) has already been appointed to oversee the progress of the project.
-economynext.com
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