The Chief Executive Officer of National Identification Authority (NIA), Prof. Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah has indicated the institution’s readiness to incorporate the other national identifications into its system.
He indicated that NIA has the capacity to contain all information on every ID system in Ghana.
President Akufo-Addo delivering his first State of The Nation Address to the 8th Parliament of the 4th Republic, indicated that National ID numbers will be linked to all sim cards, bank accounts Drivers’ licence among other forms of identification across the country.
“I should recall that at the end of 2016, only 750,000 people had TIN numbers. The increase to 15.5 million in just four years is simply phenomenal. Similarly, from the 2nd Quarter of this year, all National ID numbers will also become SSNIT numbers. This will increase the number of people on the SSNIT database from four million (4 million) to 15.5 million! The National ID numbers will also become NHIS numbers. Very soon we will link the National ID to all SIM cards, bank accounts, Births and Death Registry, DVLA, and passports.” Akufo-Addo stated
Affirming Akufo-Addo’s commitment to formalise the country’s economy by embarking on digitisation exercise, Prof. Attafuah said the National Identification Authority system is grounded in biometrics and has chip embedded robust ID system that can contain every information.
“What the National ID has is an ultramodern ID system that is grounded in biometrics. It captures the ten fingers of the individual, it captures the iris incase the individual has no fingers and also captures the face of the individuals. In all we’ve three levels of biometric identification and security
“We also have a National identification system that contains the identity and biometric details like age, name etc of the individuals.” Prof Attafuah told Citi Fm
According to him, it is of no use for institutions like DVLA, SSNIT, NHIA, Passport to spend so much to register and issue biometric ID cards since the National Identification Authority can merge them all in their system.
“And we’ve the card itself which has a chip embedded robust ID system with 148kb capacity, 20kb of it is taken about the property system and the remainder is available for use to store data. We have enough capacity for DVLA, SSNIT, NHIA, Passport, others. There is no need for these firms to register people and issue biometric ID cards since they can use the NIA. It has the capacity to contain info on every ID system in this country.” NIA Boss added
The National Identification Authority (NIA) started the mass registration and Ghana Card issuance exercise in the on April 29, 2019, and ended on Saturday, July 6, 2019.