Cameroon embraces biometric voter registration

Elections Cameroon is undertaking a biometric registration process of all its voters to ensure transparency and credibility in future elections.

The registration process will entail the registration of all voters’ fingerprints to verify their credibility.

The agency selected the German firm Giesecke und Devrient to undertake work. The contract signing ceremony took place in April at the Elections Cameroon head office in Bastos-Yaounde.

Under the multi-million dollar contract, the first three months of the contract was devoted to on-the-spot assembling of the necessary hardware and software.  The remaining seven months of the contract would be dedicated to biometric voter registration.

Andreas Walther, Project Manager of Giesecke and Devrient, trained senior staff at Elections Cameroon. The agency’s senior staff will then be in-charge of supervising the training of other trainers who will conduct the registration process.

Giesecke and Devrient will provide 1,200 electoral kits that will be used by 2,400 staff nationwide to register voters.  Two staff members will be assigned to each electoral kit. These electoral kits use their own power generators, thus staff assigned in areas without electricity will also be taught how to utilize generators.

Once the data is collected, it will be compiled and verified at the regional centers.  After this, the data will be transferred to the central production site located in Bastos-Yaounde.

According to the electoral code, political parties are advised to educate and mobilize their members and supporters to register.

What precautions should Elections Cameroon put in place to ensure the registration’s data credibility and security?

Article Topics

biometrics  |  fingerprint recognition  |  fingerprint verification  |  government purchasing  |  identification