ID4Africa: Standardisation key for harmonisation of ID scheme—Participants

Participants at the ongoing fourth ID4Africa conference on Wednesday said standardisation and harmonisation were key to successful implementation of robust identity scheme.

A cross-section of the participants, who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the venue of the summit in Abuja, said the effort would create a more simplified and defined means of identification for citizens of a country and Africans at large.

Ugochukwu Obinwanne, Assistant Manager, Regulatory and Compliance (Legal) of BizzDeskGroup, Abuja, said standardisation would make issues of identification for every individual simplified and much available for all.

Also speaking, Debora Comparin, Market Development Manager of a France-based company, IDEMIA, described standardisation as one of the key pillars of harmonisation of identification scheme.

According to her, standardisation prevents vendor locking,  prevents a company from being tied to a particular technology vendor, helps in respecting privacy and ensuring security of the solution, among others.

She, therefore, called on the need for collaboration to achieve harmonisation through standards.

Vincent Zhong, International Product Marketing Director of China’s Shenzhen Decard Smartcard Technology Company, said the ongoing conference was a welcomed development.

He said the importance of ID4Africa Summit was to emphasise the need for a unified means of identification for every individual, and the importance of ensuring its harmonisation in Africa and the world.

On his part, KaisAmor, the Regional Business Development Director of XINFOTECH, a Latvia-based company, commended the organizers of the summit.

According to him, the conference will ensure the development of African countries in terms of complete digital identity system and help to integrate this to other aspects of the economy such as finance, social programme, healthcare, insurance, among others