Israel’s Interior Minister is following through on his promise to make enrollment in a national biometric database mandatory. Minister Arye Dery first announced the measure this past summer, when he said that anyone applying for a government ID would have to register. Now, he has put forward a memorandum asserting that all citizens must register,…
Government regulators in Thailand are making biometric enrollment mandatory for mobile subscribers, reports the Bangkok Post. It’s a move headed by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, or NBTC. All mobile operators will be required to set up online fingerprint registration for subscribers, with next February being the tentative deadline. The move follows the NBTC’s announcement…
Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has gone ahead and disconnected the mobile subscribers who haven’t registered their fingerprint biometrics. It’s the conclusion of an initiative first announced last year, with the CITC following the direction of the Ministry of Interior, which aimed to prevent fraud in SIM registration. As the Saudi Gazette…
Although electronic voting is still seen by some as a thing of the future, there are experts in the field with decade’s worth of experience under their belt. This is the case of Robert Cook, Global Administration Sales Operations VP for Smartmatic. For the last 38 years, Mr. Cook has been involved in the adoption…
Following through on her insistence that the Bangladeshi government “will be tough on the issue,” State Minister for Telecom Tarana Halim has announced that mobile users in the country who haven’t registered their SIM cards will face disconnection on May 1st. It will only last a few hours, as it’s meant to serve as a…
Bangladesh’s High Court has cleared the way for the country’s biometric SIM card registration project to go ahead as planned. Authorities worked with MNOs to start registering users’ biometrics last autumn, with the measure being considered a crime-fighting effort, since it would help to stop criminals from using mobile devices under assumed names; in this…
The British government has launched a new service that will bring visa application services to individuals’ homes. Called On Demand Mobile Visa, the service is run by visa processing company VFS Global. For a fee of £750, On Demand Mobile Visa will bring visa application materials to remote locations, allowing applicants to skip the lineups that…
Mobile users in the United Arab Emirates are now required to provide their fingerprint biometrics with Etisalat, the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation. Notices have been sent out to mobile users asking them to report to Etisalat offices to provide the scans for re-registration of their mobile accounts after renewing their Emirates IDs or residence visas. The…
The government minister overseeing Bangladesh’s major project to get mobile network operators to register the biometrics of all users is taking a firm tone as she seeks to ensure it unfolds as planned. Speaking to reporters, State Minister for Telecom Tarana Halim demanded greater cooperation from MNOs. Minister Halim said she has received about 300 reports…
Gambia’s Independent Electoral Commission is busily working to prepare the country’s biometric voter registration system. Appearing before the country’s Public Accounts Committee and Public Enterprise Committee (PAC/PEC), IEC Chairman Alhaji Mustapha Carayol was asked why he came to the meeting without his senior officials, to which he replied that they are in the field working…
Mobile network operators in Saudi Arabia must now collect the fingerprint biometrics of new subscribers. It’s the product of newly implemented legislation drafted by the country’s Communications and Information Technology Commission, and reflects a growing trend around the world. Pakistan’s government mandated biometric enrollment for mobile subscribers as a security measure after the Peshawar terror…
The Philippines’ Commission on Elections, or Comelec, is once again boosting its efforts to get eligible voters’ biometrics registered for next year’s national election. With the October 31 registration deadline fast approaching, Comelec has launched a new media campaign under the banner ‘Walang Forever’, a phrase roughly translating to ‘nothing lasts forever’. The new campaign follows…