Biometric election solution providers pitch Philippines on remote online voting systems

Biometric technology providers Voatz and Smartmatic will pitch their remote online voting systems as two of four companies being considered by the Philippines government in a four-day set of consultations, the Philippine Canadian Inquirer reports.

Meetings between the Office for Overseas Voting (OFOV), the Commission on Elections (Comelec), and the four companies, which also include Dominion Voting Systems and Indra, are expected to wrap up this week.

“The purpose of the consultation is to be able to gather enough information on online voting that can be presented to Congress for its consideration,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said, according to the Inquirer. “If and when such a system is eventually put into action depends on Congress.”

Jimenez also said the solutions may not be in place for the upcoming elections in 2022.

The Philippines began automating its election system in 2010, and utilized vote counting machines in 2019.

Voatz’ biometrics and blockchain-based app has been used in dozens of elections, and was certified to U.S. requirements by the Voting System Test Laboratory (VSTL) earlier this year.

Smartmatic introduced facial recognition for online voting in its TIVI solution back in 2016, though the technology is not mentioned on the company website as part of the production solution.

Plans to use the Philippines new biometric ID card for voter verification, for which more than 3 million people had been enrolled as of a month ago, were recently announced by the Philippines Statistics Authority.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  elections  |  Philippines  |  remote authentication  |  Smartmatic  |  Voatz