Advantages of Using Biometrics for Delivering Government Services
The Indian state of Bihar discovered almost 800,000 fake ration cards that could have cost the exchequer $538,000 every month. As a whole, India suffers from ration distribution losses up to $14.5 billion due to corruption. Not only in India, this is also the typical scenario of many other countries around the world.
Biometric Identification, a sophisticated technology that identifies individual by using their biometric traits can be a solution to this problem. Just by using biometric technology to ensure fair government service distribution can bring a huge positive change. Here are some more advantages of using biometric technology for delivering public service:
Difficult to Forge
Biometric technology uses unique human attributes for identification and verification. This attributes includes but not limited to fingerprint, finger vein and iris recognition. All these attributes remain the same throughout the life of a human. These are not transferable so there is hardly anyone who can spoof the system. So, when this technology is incorporated into the process of public service distribution, there will be hardly anyone who could manipulate the data or forge the system. As a result, a fair delivery of government service will be ensured.
Establish Transparency
For appropriate public service, distribution transparency is a vital requirement. Since biometric technology cannot be forged or manipulated, government agencies can get accurate data from it to show valid data of services distributed and establish transparency in the system.
Operational Efficiency
A government agency has to distribute millions of service to its citizens. Efficiency in the distribution is a must for proper function towards the citizen. But the traditional system fails to bring efficiency into the process. It used to be lengthy, thus affecting the fair distribution of the services. Biometric technology, on the other hand, brings operational efficiency in public service distribution. This technology takes less than a minute to identify which is the fastest and efficient method. Even now-a-days biometric technology is available in portable biometric device which enables government agencies to provide service in remote areas and eliminates the legacy system from the service. For example, using a portable biometric device, police can perform field level suspect identification that brings efficiency in the police service.
Establish Accountability
Implementation of a biometric identification solution creates a concrete activity audit trail to help establish accountability. Each action will be recorded and documented by the individual associated with it,which reduces the possibility of system misuse and fraud.
Accuracy
When it comes to distributing government services, accuracy comes top on the list meaning that the right person should get the right service. With biometric technology which can’t be shared or stolen, there is almost 100% accurate result. However, the accuracy level becomes more precise if multimodal biometric technology is used in the process. Multimodal biometrics identify multiple biometric attributes such as fingerprint, finger vein, and iris recognition. These eliminate the chances of fraud and establish 100% accuracy in the process.
Real Life Example
Many governments already started using biometric technology in their public service distribution. Recently Scotland adds Biometric Authentication to Access their Public Service. In 2014, the Supreme Commission of Elections and Referendum (SCER) of Yemen used TrueVoter™ biometric voter registration solution from M2SYS Technology. With the capability of registering and matching fingerprints, finger veins, palm veins, irises, and facial templates, 14 million voters registered under this BVR system for the election. TrueVoter™ helped reduce the number of electoral disputes, supporting the legitimacy of the voting process, and boosting public confidence in Yemen’s democratic institutions. Read the full case study.
Do you want to ensure fair distribution of your government service? Are you a part of a government agency and looking for a solution? Let us know your queries. With over 17 years of experience in the field of biometric technology, we can surely help.
