Government seeks to puts national ID fears to rest

PUBLIC FEARS that the much-talked-about National Identification System (NIDS), when passed into law, will not be as secure as intended, have been dispelled by the Government.

Chief Technical Director in the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) Jacqueline LynchStewart explained that the system will be “safe, secure, and good for business”.

ONE-ID SYSTEM

“Let me be clear. NIDS will become Jamaica’s first real national identification protocol. It is to be a one-ID system in Jamaica that instead of carrying around multiple IDs, each of us will have one single ID that will allow us to do business with the Government,” Lynch-Stewart said at a press conference at the OPM’s banquet hall yesterday.

Concerns regarding security and privacy, she said, have been taken into account, and the technical team that has responsibility for the new ID system is ensuring that it is compliant with the international and security standards that are required to ensure data security.

“The other benefit is that it’s going to be the platform for the economy to become a digital economy, which means it will have positive impact on our growth,” she said.

The NIDS project is being funded jointly by the Government of Jamaica and the Inter-American Development Bank at a cost of $68 million and will be used to improve and upgrade the information and communication technology systems across multiple government agencies.