eNIC – Introducing Biometrics Enabled National Identity Card for Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka is country that heavily relies on the National Identity Card for many public and private sector services provided to the citizens such as Voting, Exams, Obtaining Passports and Licenses, Banking etc. The basic proof of identity in the country is validated using the NIC. Department of Registration of Persons being the only institution vested with the power to issue a National Identity Card, it is mandatory to obtain a NIC at the age of 16 for every Sri Lankan. Although it is the government’s responsibility to provide an error free, genuine National Identity Card to the citizens, it is identified that many fraudulent activities are carried out by people using forged NICs. Identity theft is one of the main problems in Sri Lanka which effects the security and the sovereignty of the country. Also, the institutions that offer public services to the citizens are facing difficulties when validating the genuine NICs since there is no efficient way for the department to share data with other external parties. The aim of this project is to analyse how to minimize the use of forged and duplicate NICs in Sri Lanka and design an efficient Information System that would ensure unique identity for each citizen in Sri Lanka and support e-services to private and public sector information systems. The proposed solution will facilitate a data sharing platform to the department to share the NIC details with approved parties. Customized data sharing services can be configured for any institution like police, banks using this platform. This will allow the department also to retrieve information regarding citizens if required. Special scenario will be catered to the Registrar General’s Department of to provide the NIC number at child birth using these webservices. A family tree will automatically be generated at the department using the information received from Registrar General’s Department. Meanwhile, to address the unavailability of the unique identity for person, a biometric feature; fingerprints will be introduced to the department. A billing function is also introduced to the department with the data sharing platform so that the department can charge for the service they are providing. A module will be provided to capture the fingerprints and validate against the available data in the department. eNIC for Sri Lanka iii The solution and the developed prototype were evaluated by the technical and domain experts as well as the potential users of the system. The feedback confirms that there can be a vast improvement with regards to the efficiency of the department and other institutions as well the security of the NIC with the implementation of this system.