Ambitious plans for biometric hardware in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is seriously looking at spawning an authentication equipment industry after its unique digital ID is launched, top officials tell Biometric Update.

“Where the authentication equipment is concerned, it’s something that we are very seriously contemplating. Whether the Sri Lankan market has the scale to spawn a (biometric) hardware industry with respect to authentication equipment is something we are exploring,” said Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, chief advisor to the president on digital economy.

Dr. Wijayasuriya noted that in countries such as India and Bangladesh each corner store has a biometric device and predicted that it will be standard to see a biometric machine in many stores in Sri Lanka in the future. “Fingerprint devices and iris detection, face recognition, etc, will become a new class of edge devices,” he explained. “It will be a new class of peripheral devices that are similar to the point-of-sale machines today.”

Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eranga Weeraratne also highlighted the projected demand for biometric data capturing hardware in Sri Lanka for the upcoming nationwide digital ID system and the ongoing e-NIC project.

Weeraratne indicated that these developments present a significant opportunity for local manufacturers to create and supply the required biometric hardware, thereby contributing to the overall digital ID ecosystem in the country.

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  biometrics at the edge  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  SL-UDI  |  Sri Lanka