Canada’s Immigration Minister, Ahmed Hussen, is proposing the use of biometric identification to his American counterparts as a means of better managing refugee claims between the countries. It’s part of an effort to modernize their Safe Third Country Agreement. The aim is to stop refugees from claiming their status in Canada even if they first…
Uganda has become the latest country to launch a biometric refugee identification program in collaboration with the UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency. With additional assistance from the World Food Programme, government authorities will use fingerprint readers and iris scanners to scan the country’s 1.4 million refugees, many of whom have recently arrived from the…
The UN’s refugee agency will continue to register the biometrics of Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria, the organization says. In an update concerning a recent visit of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative Antonio Jose Canhandula to border regions in Nigeria, the organization says that Canhandula spoke with local authorities to determine how Cameroonian refugees…
While the United Nations and partner nations are increasingly recognizing the advantages of biometric registration for refugees, a group of displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are refusing to comply with such efforts in a region on the border with Burundi. As The Citizen reports, the group, which numbers a little over 2,000,…
A new biometric registration system for refugees is rolling out across Ethiopia. The Biometric Identity Management System is the product of a partnership between the UNHCR – the United Nations’ refugee agency – and Ethiopia’s Refugee and Returnee Affairs department. It collects the fingerprint and iris data of all registrants, as well as biographic information…
The United Nations’ refugee agency has just completed the first phase of a family counting initiative at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, with a major assist from biometric technology. The majority of the Rohingya Muslims have fled from neighboring Myanmar, where they have faced what many are calling a genocide that has intensified over…
The growing importance of biometric technology to the UN’s refugee agency was increasingly prominent at last week’s 68th Executive Committee Meeting of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Commenting on Botswana’s work to implement the UNHCR’s Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, that country’s delegate noted that the Botswana government has issued almost a thousand biometric…
Authorities in Malaysia are urging the United Nations’ refugee agency to share its data on refugees in the country. As Channel News Asia reports, Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan framed the issue as a security concern pertaining to the Islamic State, with authorities worried that militants have slipped into the country through the UNHCR’s refugee…
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continues to promote biometric solutions for the management of refugee populations with UNHCR head Filippo Grandi’s recent visit to a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi authorities are working to help Rohingya Muslims who have fled nearby Myanmar, where they have faced persecution. Reporting on his meeting with…
Concerns about terrorism continue to drive the military biometrics market, with growing demand from the Asia Pacific region, according to a new report from Transparency Market Research. While concerns about terrorism have been a key market driver for many years, they’re now being exacerbated by mass migration, with several countries “reeling under increased distress over…
“It’s an approach that the UNHCR has been working to put into practice around the world, introducing biometric ID programs for refugees in countries like Thailand, South Sudan, and Chad.” It’s better to manage refugees than to refuse them. That’s the argument made by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Volker…
FindBiometrics president Peter O’Neill recently spoke with Rich Agostinelli, CEO, Crossmatch. The conversation begins with recognition of the company’s 20th anniversary and an overview of Crossmatch’s efforts to reorganize into two distinct business segments. The interview then goes on to deal with Crossmatch’s involvement in two extremely important vertical markets right now—FinTech and refugee ID programs—before concluding…
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has launched a new version of its biometric ID card. The card has been rolled out gradually over the past year or so, having expanded from a pilot project in a Malawi refugee camp to further deployments in Thailand and South Sudan. This approach has allowed the…
June is Border Control & National ID Month at FindBiometrics, in which we are examining the biggest, most ambitious identity tech deployments around the globe as they develop and protect the nations of the world. Last week we looked at the ways that a multimodal approach to border control is best suited to serve the international…
June is Border Control & National ID Month 2016 at FindBiometrics. All month we will be examining the ins-and-outs of biometric citizen registry and identification—its applications, real life deployments, and how it is shaping the global community—as well as the way biometrics are protecting the borders of the nations they are helping to build. To…
The CeBIT IT exhibition is coming up later this week, and DERMALOG plans to take the opportunity to highlight how its technology is being used to help manage Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis. German authorities have been issuing special identity cards to arriving refugees since the end of January, and have gradually been rolling out a…
As Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis continues, the European Commission is asking Italy to improve its collection of newcomers’ fingerprint biometric data. According to a new report, the EC is even telling Italian officials to collect the data by force in situations where migrants’ refuse to submit their fingerprints. Italy has evidently failed to fully comply…
Biometric identity solutions provider Crossmatch is helping German officials to manage the massive influx of refugees to the country. The company has announced that its technology has been deployed by Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF), Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. More specifically, BAMF is using Crossmatch’s Guardian fingerprint scanners to enrol the biometrics…
In a new report issued in collaboration with Accenture, the World Bank is calling on governments to work together to implement standardized, cost-effective identity management solutions. A report synopsis notes that about 1.8 billion adults around the world currently lack any kind of official documentation. That can exclude those individuals from access to essential services,…