Bangladeshi Voter Registration Project Uses Biometrics
BIO-key International Inc. and Tiger IT recently announced a Phase 1 award of a multi-phase project to deliver a biometric-based credentialing solution for the Bangladeshi Voter Registration Project. This solution is being deployed in preparation for Bangladesh's general elections -- to be held in 2008 -- and also for the subsequent issuance of national identity cards.
The Bangladesh Army and the Elections Commission -- jointly responsible for the deployment and management of the Voter Registration Project -- selected Tiger IT to provide voter registration and identity management software applications. Tiger IT had already selected BIO-key as its biometric technology partner for multiple in-country projects after working together to deliver a successful Voter Registration pilot project where the Bangladesh Army evaluated solutions from multiple teams. The identity management system is a multi-modal biometric solution that also includes Cognitec's FaceVACS facial software for adjudication purposes.
"Tiger IT has broad experience with dynamic solution requirements like those that we were required to satisfy in this multi-stakeholder voter registration project," said Ziaur Rahman, managing director of Tiger IT. "We are extremely impressed with the Bangladesh Army's ability to formulate an effective methodology for such a large-scale project so quickly and efficiently, and their help in evaluating various biometric technologies. Equally impressive was BIO-key's fingerprint matching algorithm, which was superior to the others that were evaluated during the pilot."
Phase 1 of the project, which has already begun, includes the enrollment of up to 7 million people on nearly 1,400 mobile enrollment clients. Due to the limited availability of server hardware, BIO-key's Intelligent Image Indexing enabled more than 500,000 records to be enrolled and checked for duplicates using only three desktop computers running the Linux server operating system -- an industry first.
"With input from the Army's staff and the project team, Tiger IT and BIO-key demonstrated the ability to work with a minimum amount of hardware to deliver a robust suite of identity management applications," said Major General Shafiq, military secretary of the Bangladesh Army. "They accomplished this while also ensuring that no one is registered more than once into the systems. We have been most pleased with the performance of both companies."
Details on the project's remaining phases are still in the planning stages. However, the Bangladesh Army and Elections Commission foresee the deployment of an additional 8,000 enrollment workstations and more than 500 servers to manage the citizen turnout which is expected to reach up to 100 million people.
"Tiger IT's stellar development team using our WEB-key and VST development platforms, and Cognitec's facial recognition software, created a turn-key multi-modal identity management system within a matter of weeks," said Michael DePasquale, president and CEO of BIO-key. "Additionally, the Bangladesh Army provided timely and crucial input. This joint effort demonstrates that emerging nations, using identity tools like those from BIO-key, can build solutions to meet their specific requirements. We have been so impressed with Tiger IT's application suite, we are now jointly marketing their solution in other countries. This contract and our previous deployment for the Nigerian general election in April is proof positive that BIO-key has developed the most accurate and efficient finger matching technology for large-scale identification. "