Heading into a new decade there’s a clear theme in Africa’s digital ID sphere: looming deadlines. First up is Tanzania’s already extended biometric SIM card registration deadline of January 20 then its analogue passport deadline of January 31, the same day Ghana’s pensioners have to have their biometrics registered by in order to keep receiving their pensions.

There is also plenty of supplier news: GenKey is embarking on a World Bank project in Niger, Securiport is setting up in Central African Republic while completing its exit transfer in Equatorial Guinea and Daon finds a resale partner in South Africa.

Niger: World Bank and GenKey collaborate for civil servant and student biometrics

With funding from the World Bank, GenKey is collaborating with the Government of Niger to roll out biometric registration and verification schemes for future human resource management for civil servants, manage student grants and allocate pensions.

This first phase will see GenKey facilitate the biometric capture of around 400,000 individuals – civil servants, students receiving grants and retirees – and their metrics added to a newly-created database. They will be issued with smartcards which will contain a barcode for easy reading.

GenKey has deployed its Necto hardware for fingerprint capture and verification, plus its SPiRE identity management system to allow use of the data in multiple contexts and its ABIS software for deduplication.

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