1 month ago
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A national identification card is in the pipeline for Belize and will see an official rollout within the next three years. The official announcement came via a report from Cabinet where it was announced that a pilot phase of the national ID system had been completed. According to the Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of E-Governance, Jose Urbina, the pilot phase occurred over the past six months, involving some 500 samples. It was during this phase that the government was able to observe a few system glitches. In an interview conducted today, CEO Urbina highlighted that there are still legislative frameworks pending before the full rollout.
Jose Urbina, CEO, Ministry of E Governance: “While the Cabinet has approved the country-wide rollout or enrollment of citizens and residents, we still need to go through our due diligence within the Government of Belize through the Ministry of Finance and the Contractor General to ensure that we also get the proper approvals for us to be able to continue the process. So Cabinet has just given us the green light. Yes, we can proceed based on the results we have achieved under the pilot project. But the due diligence still needs to happen with the procurement process. The initial timeline to complete the national ID project is a three years timeline. Mind you, we are very hopeful because we have done the pilot project that we would be able to accelerate the deployment and begin the enrollment of citizens on this new platform. So we can be a little bit more aggressive, but we also need to take into consideration the legislation that comes along with the national ID. This morning when I woke up I saw on my WhatsApp several links, you know, pushback of the national ID and how it’s going to be used and what is the function and they don’t agree with the national ID. But we need to also set the foundation. We know that a legal review is required to ensure that we have the legislative backing to have a national ID rollout. So that’s going to be one of our priorities to be able to do an open tender for the legal review to develop the legislation needed that must come along and substantiate and back the national ID along with the infrastructure and stakeholder engagement and communication and sensitization of the Belizean public as to why a national ID and why it is important to move forward with the digital transformation that this government is currently undertaking.”
Since Cabinet’s announcement yesterday, many in the court of public opinion have labeled the initiative as a waste of resources and unnecessary. According to the naysayers, the social security ID card should be sufficient. CEO Urbina, however, says the national identification card would have a separate and vital database which differs from all the other local IDs available.
Jose Urbina, CEO, Ministry of E Governance: “What we have in Belize is a series of functional IDs. And the Social Security card is a functional ID that while we Belizeans have taken, and even the private sector, Belizeans in general have taken the Social Security card as a national ID, the reality is that it is not. The reason for us having a Social Security card is really to track our employment, to track our contribution to SSB, to our social security, and also for SSB to be able to track our benefits. I’m pretty sure that when we file a doctor paper with SSB the first thing they look is not our name. They will look at our social security number, go to their database and see what is our what is our history within their database. And the same applies for a driver’s license. The purpose of the driver’s license is really to see what benefits you have as a driver, as a licensed driver and the same for voters ID. The voters ID, and I’m using the most common functional IDs that are currently being used, is really to identify a person on election day. So when we look at the national ID, the national ID is a secure national identification card that identifies you as a person, as a Belizean or a resident, and proves that you are that person holding that card. And the ultimate proof, if I may refer to it in that way, is because then we have biometric features linked to that card. And so that is what really differentiates a national ID from a functional ID.”
We will have more on the national ID system in future news broadcasts.
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