Zimbabwe

apple, India, UID, Zimbabwe

Friday Roundup

INDIA: It’s good to have goals — ‘Aadhaar’ card for everyone in Punjab by March (Daily Bhaskar)

ZIMBABWE: Biometrics in Border Migrant Reception Centre (African Press Organization) There seems to be a lot of migration within Africa. Biometrics can help countries gather better data about what’s going in that regard.

APPLE: Patent applications suggests hidden sensors suitable for biometrics (UK Register) “‘Electronic devices are becoming more and more sophisticated, capable of performing a multitude of tasks from image capture to identity verification through biometric sensors,’ patent application 20120258773 notes. That’s the good news; the bad news is that each new sensor clutters up the seamless shiny-shiny of an iDevice.”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: Apple Wants To Use Your Fingerprints to Unlock Your iPhone (gizmodo)

democracy, Kenya, vote, Zimbabwe

Electoral Biometrics: Kenya & Zimbabwe

There we’re quite a few interesting developments in the world of biometrics yesterday that I didn’t get a chance to highlight here…

Two of them have to do with biometric elections in Africa. First, it looks like the on-again-off-again biometric voter roll for Kenya may be on again. If it is, you’ll certainly see more on the matter here. If you need a chance to catch up on the saga,  here’s our most recent post on the subject.

Meanwhile there’s considerable interest in applying biometric technology to voter registration in Zimbabwe. Other Zimbabwe posts are here. Biometric voter systems have a lot to recommend them, especially in young democracies or those with a civil society emerging as a potent force capable of holding governments responsive to the rule of law. Zimbabwe’s democracy problems don’t seem to be the kind that are solved with information technology.