As we have seen, the African continent continues to use technology to solve some of its problems, and this time who has not lagged behind was the Zimbabwean government, which will use new technology to verify identity in this year's elections.
The government of Zimbabwe has announced that it has awarded and signed the contract for the supply of the biometric fingerprint identification solution with the American company Ipsidy. The hardware and software solution to be provided by Ipsidy will include an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (“AFIS"), Which will be used in the upcoming 2018 general elections in Zimbabwe.
Ipsidy says its solution is an integrated IDSearch / IMS Biometric Elector REGISTER solution with AFIS technology and workflow management capabilities.
The solution will now be used in Zimbabwe to produce the necessary electoral rolls from the elector's biometric database, apparently created in 2017. It will provide an automated publication of the electoral rolls in accordance with international and Zimbabwe electoral standards.
The integrity of the voter list will be underpinned by the accuracy of Ipsidy deduplication algorithms and award processes.
Ipsidy is headquartered in New York and has operating subsidiaries in Colombia and South Africa. Its identity transaction platform creates authenticated identity incorporations and event details with a digital signature and uses a participant's mobile device to approve a transaction. In the case of Zimbabwe, this will be a voting “transaction”.
