National digital ID system in Brazil delayed by lack of deal for biometric database access
The new national digital ID plan under which Brazil was to begin issuing credentials this month has been delayed, Bnamericas reports, due to no deal having been reached with the country’s electoral authority to access a database of biometric data from voters.
The election authority (TSE), operates under the direction of the civil identification program (ICN).
Biometric voter registration has itself been something of a challenge for the TSE, as people in Fortaleza were forced to wait for hours to meet the deadline for a whole range of government functions and services.
“If we do not ink this partnership with the electoral authority to use biometric data, we will not be able to implement the digital identity,” said José Antonio Ziebarth, a program director for Brazil’s economy ministry, at a recent event in Sao Paulo. He did not indicate how long he expects the delay to last.
The TSE says that ore than 110 million Brazilians have completed biometric registration at electoral offices this year, surpassing the agency’s goal for 2019. The plan was originally to roll out the system to full operation by 2020.
The country is also in the process of setting up a huge national database to hold a broad range of data including fingerprint, iris, face, voice, and gait biometrics from all 200 million citizens that will be shared “as widely as possible” within the government.
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