Rwanda's Minister of ICT and Innovation, Paula Ingabire has revealed that Rwandans will in the next three years be issued with digital identity (ID) cards to allow residents to use such
identification documents stored in their phones, and replace the current
physical IDs
Parliament has already
adopted the relevance of the draft law governing population registration in the
national system of single digital identity. The draft bill will be analysed by
the Lower House's responsible standing committee.
Paula Ingabire, told
lawmakers that Rwanda signed a financing agreement for the $40 million for the
execution of the digital ID system, but that the disbursement of the funds will
be done after the law has been enacted - to pave the way for the project implementation.
She said the World
Bank-funded project is for five years, adding that one year has elapsed so far,
which means that the remaining period amounts to four years.
While explaining the
relevance of the bill to lawmakers, Ingabire indicated digital identification
of people is among other key enablers of economic development and social
transformation.
Yet, she said, the
existing legislation governing the registration of the population and issuance
of the national identity card as amended to date, does not allow that
transformation.
Different from the
current situation where a person is entitled to an ID card when they are aged
at least 16, the bill provides that babies will also get digital IDs. Also,
biometrics (using fingerprints) will be even collected from children aged five
years, compared to the at least 16 years that are required so far.
Ingabire said that, in
the past years, they started taking biometrics from 16-year-olds because the
technology was not advanced to enable the collection of such data on younger
children, adding that the currently available technology allows that for
children as young as five years.
For the digital ID,
she said that they will collect biometric data for 10 fingers, compared to two
fingerprints they used to collect for the existing IDs.
"Currently, when
a child is born, they are given an identification number, and they are allowed
to get an ID card when they turn 16. But, with this move, she/he will get an ID
card immediately after birth," she said.
Once enacted, she indicated,
the law will ease the registration of people using the digital ID system.
"If we look at
the biometric data, only fingerprints were collected. Now, in order to ease the
process, we will be collecting biometrics in different ways in order to
facilitate the authentication and verification for people who want to deliver
services," she said.
Addressing some of the identified issues
The new law, the
Minister pointed out, is expected to provide solutions to a number of problems,
including the situation where there is a category of population who were not
catered for in terms of ID provision, such as stateless people (neither counted
among foreigners nor refugees) and other undocumented people while they needed
services.
Also, data relating to
the identification of persons were scattered and conflicting in different
databases of various institutions, which will be addressed by having the data
in one single digital ID system.
Another issue is that
the current law could not enable capturing and managing and authenticating
people's biometric information.
MP Aimée Sandrine
Uwambaje said the digital IDs were responding well to the current development
trends and will reduce the frequent issue of physical ID loss, as well as save
residents money they were spending on getting new ones.
Meanwhile, Ingabire
said that it is expected the ID font face photos will be updated every five
years, but indicated that the cost will not be incurred by the cardholder.
The draft law mainly
covers categories of population to be registered, registrations of the new-born
and nationality grantees, change of registered location, enrolment of the
population into a single digital identity system, and management of a single
digital identity system.
Responding to MPs'
worries about mistakes that were made while issuing the current IDs -such as
misspelled names - Ingabire said that said the first job in the data cleansing
exercise will be to correct the mistakes that were made on current IDs with a
view to ensuring accuracy in the digital system.
