Papua New Guinea mobile biometric voter enrollment trial with Credence ID successful

The U.S. outfit announced in a press release that the new mobile biometric voter registration system had a successful pioneer field trial on October from 3 to 7 October during polls in Kupiano in the country’s Abau District.

According to the statement, the mobile registration solution includes the CredenceTAB integrated biometric data collection and matching system, which has the ability to simultaneously capture 10 fingerprints, a face, a signature and the location where the voters are being enrolled.

The company says that during the trail, new potential voters were quickly validated and added to the electoral roll thanks to pre-loaded voter information on the CredenceTAB platform. The biometric and biographic data obtained was then exported into a central database where duplicated information was expunged before being compiled and tallied. All of this is done in comparison with existing records held by the election management body so as to have an error-free voter register.

Simon Sinai, the acting electoral commissioner for Papua New Guinea said the new solution will go a long way in helping fight some of the common problems that have plagued the voter registration process in the country. “This technology is easy to use for both the operators and voters. We are now improving on the first trial and will do more trials to get prepared,” Sinai said.

Bruce Hanson, Chief Executive Officer of Credence ID said: “As a U.S.-based company with partners around the world, we are very proud to be supporting the democratic process of fair, open and inclusive elections in Papua New Guinea.” He added that the combination of their sophisticated hardware, software and services such as VIBE, CredenceCONNECT, and CredenceTAB “…provide a comprehensive and proven solution for voter ID projects.”

Credence ID also announced that during the recent Papua New Guinea trial, CredenceCONNECT enabled election officials to track and monitor future field enrollments, all of this with the help of non-personally identifiable information. These, the company said, can be mapped, analyzed and reliably handled from any web browser.

Plans for conducting a pilot phase for the new biometrics voter registration program in Papua New Guinea were announced last month.

About Credence ID

At Credence ID, we facilitate the democratization of the world’s ‘under-documented’​ populations by providing solutions that make human enrollment and identification fast, intuitive, and cost effective. Our products, both hardware and software, are specifically focused to enable an individual’s access to his/her rights through his/her identity – think biometric-empowered social welfare delivery, natural disaster relief funds with a touch of a finger, bureaucracy-free micro-finance programs, voter identification, etc. We hope to pivot the use of biometrics away from the DoD/FBI world where “you don’t want to be on that database”​, to the empowerment world where “you want very much to be included”​. From a philosophical view point, we are creating “tools of democracy”​ such that everyone is included. We are heads down focused on creating products that are low cost, non-threatening, android based devices that are as simple to use as your mobile phone. We strive to create an ecosystem where each social/civilian agency can say “there is an app for that”.