Biometrics in the Developing World

While biometrics are generally thought of as expensive and exclusively for developed nations, biometrics are making a big splash in the developing world. Biometic projects are taking way, giving citizens in lower class society a viable chance to become part of economic and social growth in their own country. In countries such as India, approaches like this are really taking hold.

In India, the Unique ID project in particular has been used to identify all citizens by number with a biometric marker such as an iris or fingerprint scan. This system has been referred to as a real way to bring real citizenship and give even lower caste members a chance to be part of the society and economy in a way they have never been able to before. This system even gives all nationals access to formal banking.

There are some issues in countries such as India, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan, all developing countries. There are some biometric systems that are currently struggling with ghost workers, which are by definition made up workers, people who are collecting paychecks for not actually doing anything at all.

Countries are using biometrics to address this problem by registering all public employees and eliminating anyone who is not enrolled or for that matter people who have registered before. These types of programs have been implemented in 15 countries so far. Nigeria alone has used this system to eliminate 43,000 ghost employees. Government officials expect to eliminate 107,000 more ghost employees from the police force alone.

This kind of system is far superior to manual systems used to weed out ghost workers from those who were actually fulfilling a job requirement. However, many expect that true differences will happen over time, especially in countries such as India, where the population is so significant. However, it is expected that within a short period of time, this system will literally save governments as much as $23 billion per year.