National Center for Information technology have said that once the funding is approved all citizens will be provided with bio-metric national identity cards.
Speaking to the press at Kurumba Maldives، Mohamed Ashmalee the head of NCIT said that introducing bio metric identity cards is an important agenda set in the information technology policy of the government.
Ashmalee said that they have been doing research regarding the bio metric identity cards for almost 2 years now. He said that they have looked into how smart cards are used in Malaysia and Singapore. Earlier this year Maldives has introduced bio metric passports as well.
Ashmalee said that when bio metric id cards are used، judiciary، education، health and other such services can be easily provided because a lot of information can be checked via a central system. Ashmalee said that all the citizens will be provided with an id card and all the documents related to that person can be checked via the id card.
As for now NCIT is waiting for the government to approve funds. It is estimated that the project will cost around 15 million dollars.