Johannesburg, 20 Nov 2002
Face Technologies, a subsidiary of leading IT solutions and services provider, arivia.kom, has been awarded the contract to implement the Southern African Development Community (SADC) drivers` licence project for the government of Namibia.
Face Technologies and its joint venture partner Namibian-owned United Africa Group are collaborating on the production of the licence cards.
George Stander, Chairman of Face Technologies, and managing executive of arivia.kom`s Niche Market Division, explains that with this project, Face Technologies adds Namibia to its list of clients for national identification systems, which includes the South African drivers` licence card, and drivers` and motor vehicle registration system for Malawi and Zambia.
"Face Technologies has considerable experience in implementing national identification systems of this type. Their hands-on approach and know-how are vital due to the implementation deadline and national importance of the project: the target is to convert all current paper-based licences within 33 months to the new card system. The project will have a great impact on road and driver safety in Namibia in terms of elimination of fraud and legitimising of drivers."
In September 2002, the Namibian Minister of Works, Transport and Communications, Moses Amweelo, officially opened the new driving licence project at NaTIS (Namibian Traffic Information System) Valley in Windhoek, Namibia. Launching the project, Amweelo said the SADC Protocol on Transport, Communications and Meteorology stipulates, among others, that member countries have a harmonised format and coding of driving licences.
"It is therefore high time that Namibia joins its sister countries in SADC in issuing driving licences that conform to the SADC standard. In this way a Namibian driver can travel without problems through any SADC country with a driving licence that is fully acceptable and also understandable by the traffic law enforcers because of its standardised format and coding," the minister explained.
Amweelo said such unhindered travel would encourage trade and tourism between SADC countries to the benefit of Namibia, the SADC region and Africa as a whole. The new driving licences are introduced in terms of the SADC Protocol on Transport, Communications and Meteorology as well as the Road Traffic and Transport Act of 1999.
The new driving licence card will be one of the first to fully comply with ISO 9002 (International Standards Organisation) requirements for the physical characteristics of standardised driving licence cards. The Namibian system consists of live-capturing registration units that are used to register all applicants, with attached fingerprint reader, signature pad, camera box, uninterrupted power supply and zip drive for backups. The registration software used in the production process will create a unique key (PKI - Public Key Infrastructure), which will provide secure, systematic user and document authentication.
The system is one of the first on the continent to use the full Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The AFIS will ensure once-off registration only, because all fingerprints will be identified and verified before issuing a new driving licence card. In future, this will allow all other Namibian national departments to verify fingerprints from driving licences.
The security features on the card are of a very high standard to eliminate the issuing of potentially fraudulent paper-based licences. These include ghost images and holograms, as well as two-dimensional barcode printing into which applicants` fingerprints will be incorporated. This makes it possible to verify a licence, regardless of the location, by using a portable verification device.
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