Page 53 - The Digital Financial Services (DFS) Ecosystem

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Ecosystem

civil registration database (University of Florida, 2015). As part of their ongoing commitment to improve the
performance of democratic governments, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supported
Zambia in incorporating biometrics in its Continuous Voter Registration program in 2010 (Government of
Zambia & United Nations Development Programme, 2009). The government of Ukraine passed a biometric
identification law in 2012 that allows for the incorporation of biometrics in both the national identity card and
passport, and a unified state demographic register will be set up to store citizen’s basic personal information
(Mayhew, 2012).

The extent of national identity systems and the roles of these systems varies dramatically across countries.
Cambodia and Nigeria, for example, both implemented special identification programs in addition to national
identification cards. The Cambodian Identification of Poor Households Programme seeks to identify poor
households in rural villages and the level of poverty in these villages so that the Ministry of Planning can
help lift the poorest households out of poverty by directly targeting services and development assistance to
them (Cambodia Ministry of Planning, n.d.). In Nigeria the focus of the special identification program is quite
different: in 2014 the Central Bank of Nigeria, in collaboration with all banks in Nigeria, launched the Bank
Verification Number (BVN). The BVN is a centralized biometric identification system that provides the banking
industry and its customer greater security for access to sensitive or personal banking information (Central
Bank of Nigeria, 2014a).

In Ethiopia, except for passports, we find no evidence of any national-level identity cards. Instead, all regional
governments issue their own identification cards (Kebele cards), including in local languages such as Oromifa,
Amharic, Somali, Tigregna and English (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 2014b). All descriptions of
the Ethiopian ID program in this review refer to these regional IDs.

3.1 Program Technical Features

Formal identification and authentication to ensure eligibility are important requirements for people’s
interactions with both public and private institutions (Gelb & Clark, 2013). Traditional paper-based identification
systems have long used a variety of personal information which can include a name, assigned number, date
of birth, gender, address, signature, and even a photograph of the individual. Traditional non-digital systems,
however, are subject to errors, duplications, forgery, false acceptances (when an unauthorized individual is
allowed enrollment), and false rejections (when an authorized individual is rejected for enrollment). Electronic
databases, combined with biometric technology, may mitigate some of these errors. Instead of registering
target populations manually and storing identity information in paper registers, proponents contend that
electronic capture and storage of data “can improve accuracy and security, facilitate fast data processing and
collection, and create auditable transaction records; all of which have the potential to prevent fraud, improve
service delivery, and aid development planning” (Gelb & Clark, 2013; World Bank, 2014). In addition, modern
biometric technologies in identification offer some promise of authentication, establishing confidence in
individual claims about identity (Bennett & Lyon, 2008; Gelb & Clark, 2013).

For each of the 48 programs reviewed, Table 1 describes whether authentication involves a physical credential,
an electronic component, and different types of personal and biometric information. Physical credentials
are usually paper or plastic-based identity cards. Programs with no physical credential are based entirely
on electronic systems. Physical credentials with an electronic component include “smart” cards and other
types of machine-readable IDs, such as those containing barcodes. Authentication can involve both personal
information, such as a name, gender, birth date, and other related information, as well as biometric information
which can include fingerprints, a face scan, an eye scan, a voice print, or DNA. Blank spaces in the table indicate
areas where we could not find information about a specific program.
Almost all programs (45 of 48) use a physical credential to authenticate an individual’s identity, with three
exceptions. In India, the Unique Identification Authority assigns a one-of-a kind ID number to every Indian
resident using cloud-based technology without issuing a card (Zelazny, 2012). Nigeria’s Bank Verification
Number (BVN) authenticates financial transactions through the use of only biometric features and a PIN
(Central Bank of Nigeria, 2014a). Yemen’s voter registration assigns each resident a unique identification
number and records biometric information without issuing a card (Al-Junaid, 2015).

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