Digital ID project – tender to be floated soon

Sri Lanka has a messy history when it comes to its national-level digital projects, especially with the likes of TV digitalization and number portability spanning decades. Now, it appears another decades-long digital project may finally be moving forward. The Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka said that it is hoping to open the procurement process to obtain a supplier from India to build the IT solution for the ongoing Digital ID project in Sri Lanka, which will see the re-registration of the entire citizenry.

“The overall idea is to re-issue National Identification Cards (NICs) to the entire adult population in the country. The by-product of this is the digital ID. This is a humongous project and we were grappling with financial constraints – it goes into billions of rupees because we have to set up centers, enroll the entire population, and so on. So, after more than a year’s discussion, the Indian government agreed to give us a grant. The grant was signed earlier this year and it will cover the IT solution. With that funding assurance, we have obtained all the approvals, and the tender will be floated in a few days,” an ICTA official told ReadMe.

In February 2022, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a proposal by the Technology Ministry to obtain an INR 300 million grant from the Indian government to implement the ‘Unitary Digital Identity Framework’ in Sri Lanka. 

“The IT solution is a huge task – it is called re-registration. You have to re-register the entire citizenry. In the re-registration process, all the data is captured and stored in one location. There is raw data and so on. We double-check to ensure that there are no duplications in registrations in different centers. That entire solution is a big solution and you need to make sure there will not be any failures. This is a longer-term contract – we are planning for several years – and that tender is what we are going to float now.”

Conditions and Concerns

According to ICTA, a condition of the MOU states that the procurement process can only be opened to Indian suppliers. “This is a common condition in most of these MOUs, from any country,” the official added.

“Privacy concerns about giving the bid to a foreign company come because people ask why India would give this money ‘for free.’ But if you really look at it, if it was not an Indian grant, it would be an international tender,” the official noted, in response to concerns about privacy and security aspects of the project.

He explained that in the last international tender for a similar digital ID project in the Philippines, the bid was won by an Indian company and that they have already registered over 50 million people.

“It can be any company – what matters is not who the supplier is but what controls are put in internally to ensure that the system is operating and that even the suppliers do not have undue access,” he said. Although, the question remains how strong are these internal controls?

Is Aadhar the benchmark?

India introduced the ‘Aadhar’ card for its citizens, where biometric data is attached to a unique digital ID for each citizen. ICTA noted that this has brought about successful changes to the country and hoped that similar positive outcomes would follow in Sri Lanka.

“For example, when giving Samurdhi or other relief measures, there are issues at the moment as the actual beneficiaries may not receive the relief. But if you have a digital ID, linked to a bank account, money can be directly transferred to the respective beneficiary’s bank. If they are in a queue but do not have the ID, just putting the fingerprint would do. Forgery cases would also be limited. The moment you have a mechanism to know exactly who the person is, that changes a lot of things. To my knowledge, India has been very successful in this project.”

However, since the launch of Aadhar in 2009, controversy has followed it, especially with regard to fears about a strengthened surveillance state and corporates gaining access to private data. Reports show that over the years, privacy rights activists have maintained that Aadhar intensifies government surveillance on citizens and could also pose a national security risk due to data breaches, even as the Premier Narendra Modi-led government ramped up the digital registration of citizens since coming into power. Despite this, in 2018, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that Aadhar does not violate the privacy rights of citizens, and is hence, constitutionally valid. 

Now, Aadhar is cited as the world’s largest biometric database, home to information of approximately 1.1 billion citizens, or 90% of the country’s population. Although it remains a voluntary platform, it is central to accessing several key welfare programs – a factor that has reportedly been used by the Modi government to encourage registration across rural India. 

Even as recently as March 2022, Indian media reported that the government has issued new directives on how to safely use the Aadhar number such as using a ‘masked’ version (only displays the last 4 digits) of the Aadhar card. 

Timeline

ICTA hopes to complete the re-registration of all citizens within one and a half years to two years of the conclusion of the procurement process.

“Even now when you go to the ID card office or to the passport office, they will take a photo and fingerprint. Similarly, in order to issue the new ID card, the process will involve a photo, fingerprint, and most likely the iris. Currently, they just take the information and store it. In this project, with that biometric information, we are going to create an algorithm because the biometrics are unique to any given person. There will be a number linked to this algorithm and to that number, we can attach the NIC, the driver’s license, and everything else. That number can be used in the digital space and this is the digital ID. We are hoping that the new digital ID number will be the new NIC number too.

The last Wickremasinghe-Sirisena-led government attempted to introduce the Electronic-NIC project. In 2015, then Internal Affairs, Wayamba Development and Cultural Affairs Minister S.B. Nawinna tabled a proposal in Cabinet to issue new electronic NICs to all eligible citizens in the span of 2 years. This was followed by the launch of the ‘Smart ID’ in late 2017 to act as an interim solution until the e-NICs were to be issued. In 2011, the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration also attempted to implement a similar tool. 

“We have been trying to do this for the last 20 years and at least now we are hoping to get it done. It is usually a political project in any country, and this is something both parties tried over the years,” said ICTA.

In related news, a recent extraordinary gazette added a new portfolio to the government – the Ministry of Technology and Investment Promotion. Accordingly, several institutes will serve under the new ministry including the ICTA, TRC, Sri Lanka Telecom, the Department of Registration of Persons, as well as the Department of Immigration and Emigration among others. While there’s little mention of the reasoning behind this reorganization, one indication may point to a possible acceleration of the digital ID project. As to how exactly this will pan out, time will tell.