Biometrics can go a long way in improving the democratic process. With a clean, comprehensive and robust biometric voter registry in place duplicate records are eliminated, the process of casting a ballot is simplified for the end user and, most importantly, voter fraud becomes more difficult by orders of magnitude.
Biometric voter registry is gaining popularity all around the world, particularly in frontier markets with young democracies. Today, Yemen will be joining the list of nations enlisting biometrics to aid in elections, with the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum (SCER) currently deploying the TrueVoter Biometric Voting Platform from M2SYS Technology.
TrueVoter is a highly customizable biometric system. Multi-modal in nature, it allows for voter identification with iris, fingerprint, palm print, facial and vascular recognition. The platform offers voter analytics and promises a suite of safety measures to protect citizen privacy.
M2SYS is working with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) on this deployement, which will cover 150 million fingerprint and 15 million facial templates. According to M2SYS, the SCER will be using TrueVoter in a facial and fingerprint recognition capacity.
The benefits of biometric voting here extend past the practical. In addition to (and in many ways as a result of) the efficient and more accountable voting system, citizens of Yemen will be able to place more trust in their country’s democratic process.
Mizan Rahman, M2SYS Technology’s founder and CEO commented on the deployment, saying: “We are pleased that IFES and the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum (SCER) have selected M2SYS for our TrueVoter and ABIS solutions for their electoral process in Yemen. Governments and electoral commissions across the globe are utilizing biometric voter registration technology to establish fair and credible elections.’
‘Our TrueVoter biometric voting system provides the SCER with an integrated solution that enables them to successfully execute a clean nationwide voter registry,” continues Rahman. “Our superscalar system will allow the SCER to de-duplicate the entire registrant population’s biometric data in less than one month with only three servers.”
Recently, FindBiometrics reported on M2SYS in July, right after the company announced that its smart fingerprint reader, M2-FuseID, received Personal Identity Verification (PIV) certification from the FBI. PIV certification signifies an FBI standard of quality and interoperability.
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August 19, 2014 – by Peter B. Counter
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