“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…
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is now working with government authorities in Chad to register stateless refugees in an identity program that uses biometrics to ensure such individuals have official and reliable identification. It’s an important effort in Chad, which has seen an influx of refugees from war-torn neighbour the Central African Republic.…
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…
Interview with Peter Went, CEO, WCC Smart Search and Match Identity goes beyond biometrics, and in the global identity management industry we are beginning to see a shift toward a broader, more accurate understanding of who an individual is. This is thanks, in large part, to the reemergence of biographics as an important identifier. FindBiometrics…
The Crisis Forced displacement is a global problem born as the result of persecution and conflict. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s 2014 Global Trends report, by the end of last year there were 59.5 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide, 19.5 million of which are counted as refugees. To illustrate the…
The United Nations’ refugee agency continues to roll outs its new biometric identity cards with a new deployment in South Soudan. In collaboration with the South Soudan Commission for Refugee Affairs (CRA), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has distributed 3400 such cards to refugees in the Western Equatoria state in July alone. The…
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has completed its rollout of a biometric identification system for refugees in Thailand. The system has now provided identification for almost 110,000 refugees, including many from Myanmar. The project was undertaken with the cooperation of the Royal Thai Government as well as NGOs supporting the UNHCR, and…
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is urging Malaysia’s government to let it introduce a biometric identity card to refugees fleeing from neighboring Myanmar. Most of the refugees are ethnic Rohingya Muslims facing persecution and oppression from the largely Buddhist majority in Myanmar. The sheer volume of refugees alone is cause for concern…