The Commission on Elections in the Philippines selects Gemalto’s biometrics solution to ensure secure and rapid voter authentication
Philippines elections 2019 to utilize biometrics. Source: gemalto.com
Electoral commissions have the delicate task of maintaining reliable and correct electoral registers as part of the execution of the election. To help ensure secure and accurate voter verification before issuing ballot slips, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in the Philippines has appointed Gemalto and Nextix as technology partners to develop, deploy and support the Biometric Voter Verification System for the 2019 Philippines National and Local Election. The aim is to automate the verification of voters through the use of their biometrics information.
Addressing this need, Gemalto will provide over 30,000 biometric tablets to enable rapid identification and authentication of voters in the designated precincts across the Philippines. With the tablets that feature Gemalto’s Voter Verification System, authorities will be able to reduce fraud by verifying voters’ identity via their fingerprints. This will also help cut waiting times for the voters and authorities tremendously.
COMELEC will use the Gemalto solution to verify the identity of voters. This was put to a test for the first time during the mock elections held on 19th Jan 2019, in preparation for the actual polls in May 2019. Instead of manually checking the COMELEC’s voters list, members of the Board of Election Inspectors used the Voter Registration Verification Tablet, a system that removes the need for voters to present their identification card. Thanks to the tablet the electoral board will identify the voter’s with their fingerprint to determine if the voter is registered and whether the individual belongs to the certain precinct. If the individual is a registered voter, the tablet will validate the registration and they will receive the necessary ballot.
Fingerprints serve as a key to avoid duplication. The aim is to ensure that citizens are not able to use several identities to vote multiple times. The Voter Verification System implements quality control to verify that the data has been captured and verified correctly. Authorities are also able to track voting activity and participation rate via logs and audit reports. These steps will ensure the best possible level of security for elections to take place.
