Biometric Driver Licenses See Mass Issuance in Philippines

With the nationwide launch of a new biometric driver’s license program complete, the Philippines’ Land Transport Office is now issuing half a million such ID documents per month.

The project was first unveiled three months ago, when Germany-based Dermalog announced that it had been selected to provide the technology for the program. Each document features an embedded fingerprint scanner, with the biometrics of each applicant checked against the LTO’s database to prevent duplication and fraud.

In a statement, Dermalog announced that in the initial phase of the system’s deployment, it was able to detect over 20 attempts to obtain a second driver’s license under a new name. LTO Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante, meanwhile, said the system is replacing a backlog of paper-based intermediate driver’s licenses, adding, “LTO is confident that the full backlog will be cleared until April 2018.”

This update on the program arrives as government authorities in the Philippines start to move forward with an ambitious national ID program that could incorporate biometric data from a number of agencies. If that does take shape, the Dermalog technology used in this LTO program could end up having a much larger impact than anticipated.

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December 6, 2017 – by Alex Perala