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National ID card for citizens on cards

Project to start next year, Babar tells JS

MUSTAK HOSSAIN
The government is planning to introduce for every citizen a multipurpose national identity card with photograph and fingerprint.
State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar yesterday told the Jatiya Sangsad that work on the project would start from the next year.
The cards will be issued collecting information about every individual and the information will be preserved in a national database, sources said.
The database will help the lawenforcing agencies combat crime as they will have instant access to all the information preserved in it.
At present it is very difficult for the police to identify persons involved in crime. Once the ID card is introduced, it will be easier for them, sources said.
The citizens will need to produce the identity card for obtaining pass-
port, voter registration card, driving licence and tax identification number (TIN). Besides, it will be used as a document of nationality, the sources said.
A person's name, profession, SEE PAGE 11 COL 4 FROM PAGE 12
date of birth, address, blood group, signature and photograph will be included in the ID card.
Optical fingerprint or iris scan will be hidden in the card in the form of two-dimensional magnetic memory or in a microchip. This will check counterfeiting of the cards and prevent people from falsifying their identity.
Sources said the most sophisticated technology will be applied in issuing the cards so that no person can duplicate the card or hold more than one card.
Each card will bear a unique number to be generated from a central database through fingerprint verification or iris scanning. The number will contain some digit from name, date of birth, place of birth etc.
The government will provide all border outposts, airports and police stations with special scanners to retrieve the information embedded in the card.
"Even an individual's financial information such as bank account statements and tax updates can be stored in the card depending on the memory capacity of the magnetic tape or chips," said Dr M Abdul Awal, a professor at North South University (NSU) and one of the developers of the programme.
The Computer Science Department of NSU and the Institute
of Information & Communication Technology (IICT) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) have jointly developed the model.
He said many countries including USA, Britain, Spain, France, Malaysia, Germany and Singapore have introduced the national ID card which is called either social security or residence card.
The ID card would reduce the workload of the special branch of police, which takes a long time to verify documents when a person applies for passport.
NSU and BUET have recently presented a demonstration of the model at the home ministry. According to the model, a database will be established at each district linking to the central database in the capital.
The government is yet to decide about the implementation agency of the project but sources said the Directorate of Immigration and Passport may be the possible executing body.
Sources said the government will not have to spend much on the project as the applicants will pay for the card.
The Election Commission had taken a project to issue voter ID card in 1995 but the project was abandoned due to various anomalies.