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An Accra High Court has ruled that the National Identification Authority can continue registering Ghanaians after two citizens filed a case arguing that continued registration violates the social distancing directive issued by president Akufo-Addo. However, a different division of the High Court granted a similar injunction filed by a group of 30 citizens, in force for ten days beginning on March 23.
Source: https://www.modernghana.com/news/992060/continue-with-your-ghana-card-registration-…
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To help the UK's Department for Work and Pensions handle the more than half a million applications the department received in the last two weeks of March, the identity verification company Nomidio, a subsidiary of Post-Quantum, is offering its service free of charge. The service would enable a simple, server-based three-step verification process through a smartphone to help first-time users prove their identity.
Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202003/free-palm-and-face-biometrics-…
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British biometric start-ups are helping the UK government create digital passports.
VST Enterprises is providing a biometrics-backed digital health care passport, V-COVID, to help critical NHS and emergency services workers get back to work; the passport will incorporate test results and be included in an app that can be scanned from two meters away. In combination, Patchwork Health, which provides NHS trusts with a digital platform and Truu, which provides a digital staff passport,…
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Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte has exempted survey teams and National ID system registrars from lockdown rules on the basis that they are essential to providing cash distributions and other government responses intended to soften the impact of the community quarantine. Duterte argued that the acknowledged delays to the government's programme to assist low-income families derived from discrepancies in the lists of beneficiaries caused by relying on the 2015 census and that the implementation…
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In February 2019 Gemalto announced it would supply the Uganda Police Force with its Cogent Automated Biometric Identification System and LiveScan technology in order to improve crime-solving. LiveScan enables police to capture biometric data alongside mugshots and biographical data. CABIS speeds up the biometric matching process by mapping distinctive characteristics in fingerprints, palm prints, and facial images. The Ugandan police will also pilot Gemalto's Mobile Biometric Identification…
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In October 2018, the answers to a FOIA request filed by the Project on Government Oversight revealed that in June 2018 Amazon pitched its Rekognition facial recognition system to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials as a way to help them target or identify immigrants. Amazon has also marketed Rekognition to police departments, and it is used by officers in Oregon and Florida even though tests have raised questions about its accuracy. Hundreds of Amazon workers protested by writing a…
Content type: Examples
In February 2019, the World Food Programme, a United Nations aid agency, announced a five-year, $45 million partnership with the data analytics company Palantir. WFP, the world's largest humanitarian organisation focusing on hunger and food security, hoped that Palantir, better known for partnering with police and surveillance agencies, could help analyse large amounts of data to create new insights from the data WFP collects from the 90 million people in 80 countries to whom it distributes 3…
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In 2015, the Swedish startup hub Epicenter began offering employees microchip implants that unlock doors, operate printers, and pay for food and drink. By 2017, about 150 of the 2,000 workers employed by the hub's more than 100 companies had accepted the implants. Epicenter is just one of a number of companies experimenting with this technology, which relies on Near Field Communication (NFC). The chips are biologically safe, but pose security and privacy issues by making it possible to track…