Bangladesh launches smart national ID cards

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the government has decided to provide smart national identity (NID) cards to all citizens of Bangladesh — about 116mn- irrespective of their ages.
“I think all citizens should have identity cards...we’ve decided in principle to provide that,” she said.
The prime minister was inaugurating the launch of smart NID cards.
Hasina said citizens who are now 18 years of age and above will be provided with the smart NID cards. “But, we’re taking steps to provide the smart NID cards to those who are under 18 or not eligible for voting. She also mentioned that convicted criminals and physiologically-challenged citizens will be brought under this smart NID process. We’ll give them NID as well.”
The smart NID card was first provided for the president. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad received it on behalf of the president from the prime minister.
The CEC also handed over the smart NID to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The prime minister then handed over the smart NID cards to all members of Bangladesh ODI cricket team.
The distribution of NID cards will begin in two city corporations in Dhaka and in a remote area in Kurigram the following day. Then smart cards will be distributed at sub-district, municipality, union and ward levels in phases over the next 13 months.
According to the election commission, the number of voters in the country is now about 100mn. A total of 81,058,698 citizens got NID cards eight years ago for the first time.
The machine-readable smart card will prevent its forgery. For being machine readable, the smart cards have additional safety measures against forgery. To maintain security of the smart cards, 25 international certifications and standards have been ensured. The microchips in smart cards will contain all the information of a citizen.
Encrypted data would be stored inside a chip in the cards, officials said.
The cardholders will get 22 types of services, including banking, taxpaper identity number (TIN), driving license and passport.
The distribution of the cards will start in the two city corporation areas of the capital today.
The first smart NID cards people will get in exchange for their old cards will be free. People will have to go to smart card distribution centres with their old cards. The EC officials then will collect biometric details and picture of their iris before giving them their smart new cards.
The EC has already published advertisements in newspapers mentioning the names of smart card distribution centres in the capital.