IriTech provides iris biometrics for Uganda’s upgraded registration kits

The next-generation biometric registration kits rolled out across Uganda as the country attempts to reach 33 million people registered for the national ID system include upgraded iris biometrics scanners from IriTech.

Uganda’s National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) rolled out more than 5,665 biometric registration kits to enroll residents to Ndaga Muntu under its 2024 to 2026 campaign. The biometric registry is used to issue ID cards, but also to support public service delivery and financial inclusion.

The new registration kits collect fingerprint biometrics, but also iris biometrics using the IriShield BK binocular scanner from IriTech.

Iris biometrics were introduced to the system in order to better serve elderly people, manual laborers and others. More than 1 million Ugandans had difficulty registering their fingerprint biometrics, according to NIRA figures cited by IriTech,

The inclusion of iris biometrics also makes the system highly resilient against identity fraud, the company says.

The company announcement attributes NIRA’s decision in large part to the accuracy results of IriTech’s iris image processing and matching algorithm in testing by NIST, and global certifications including India’s STQC and BIS, MOSIP L0 compliance. The IriShield-USB BK212U iris scanner was one of the first scanners certified to MOSIP’s MACP Framework, through an assessment by BixeLab.

The IriShield also provides on-board processing and liveness detection capabilities, with a design IriTech calls “compact yet rugged” for reliable operation in remote rural areas where lighting and environmental conditions can be challenging.

NIRA has migrated 28 million biometric records to the MOSIP digital ID platform in the open-source platform’s first completed brownfield implementation.

Article Topics

biometric enrollment  |  biometrics  |  iris biometrics  |  IriTech  |  national ID  |  National Identification and Registration Authority of Uganda (NIRA)  |  Uganda