Antigua looks to make voters’ biometric information available to other agencies

Antigua’s government will debate a plan to implement a system for capturing, digitizing and archiving citizens’ fingerprints during the electoral process. The measure is intended to give several government agencies access to the national biometric database.

According to a report in the Antigua Observer, the Minister of Information, Melford Nicholas, said that the amendment to the Representation of the People Amendment Act (2003) is primarily to facilitate the new policy of incorporating fingerprints into the biometric data that will be contained in the new microchipped e-passports being produced by the Canadian Banknote Company.

Nicholas also said that while “consideration was not given for the capture of the fingerprint information,” when voters submit their print “it’s a resource that can have multi-use potential” adding that the fingerprint records could form part of the state’s own Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).

Article Topics

AFIS  |  biometric database  |  biometrics  |  Caribbean  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  law enforcement  |  voter registration