WHY HAVE WE CHOOSEN TO SACRIFE OUR RIGHT FOR TECHNOLOGY?

Anytime a new product is coined as 'High-Tech', it also bears the weight of being 'high-burden'. The promise and determination of providing advanced technology of enrolling prospective voters via biometric comes with the disadvantage of measuring its effectiveness against the technology of old. For the tremendous leaps and bounds in security technology that comes with biometric, it should be expected that biometrics also have its fair share of uncertainties and probably a more frustrating ones that must be addressed. It has been projected in several ways that biometrics are expected to become a mainstream in some few years to come. But then the only way that should happen is when all the questions are answered and doubt cast aside, for no new technology is without obstacles. Proponents of biometrics point to a number of benefits: 1) the technology provides convenience, the hassle of having to remember or recovering lost ID cards.

They argue that it makes identity fraud more difficult, thereby eliminating multiple voting at the end. The question therefore is how can one vote more than ones? The proponents of this system argue further that biometrics would save the Electoral Commission time and money in administrative cost. In fact we are yet to be told how and why, including how this technology would deal wit our existing electoral fraud, violence and ballot box snatching. Although it may make giant strides in the case of data collection, biometrics may also make mistakes. It might interest you to read that these system are better at identifying men than women and older people than younger ones, while one can also be 'outsmarted' by simple tricks such as placing a photo of an authorized individual in front of the lens. Then there stands the inevitable problem in computing, human errors in data entry, which could lead a computer to ‘correctly’ match an individual’s biometric markers to a mistyped on database. Once such errors are linked and circulated on a multiple centralized databases, the difficulties of ‘cleaning’ them might prove insurmountable.

 For instance, an innocent person’s iris points falsely linked to a criminal record could become the digital equivalent of a ‘scarlet letter’, subjecting an individual to unnecessary suspicion and intrusive surveillance. It’s hard enough already to correct errors on one’s voter ID, and there is no reason to think that correcting one’s identity files on biometrics would be that easier when the EC have failed to even capture valid voter ID holders on their own system dubbed ‘Gvive’, a software provided to banks particularly Ghana Commercial Bank to verify the authenticity of voters ID. In the midst of the numerous improvements of biometrics, let’s not forget that it would be based on the assumption that the person using the biometric system is able to successfully perform the biometric scan on consistent basis. It means when a user is unable to scan, it can lead to disenfranchising that person though he or she might be 18 years and above and of a sound mind as enshrined in the 1992 constitution. Why are we eager to disqualify people from exercising their right on the basis of deformities? The biggest cause of user difficulty with biometric system is a lack of proper training. Training is needed to explain possible sources of problems and the methods to prevent them. For instance, a fingerprint reader may have difficulty capturing dry or rough skin, and the user must be educated as to how to identify this condition as well as the proper method of preparing his or her finger to eliminate the problem.

The correct positioning of the finger to ensure that the fingerprint is captured in its entirety is equally important, and should be demonstrated to users before they register their finger into the system. Something as basic as person’s glasses needed to be removed for an iris scanner to capture successfully. Have the EC trained the over 23,000 operators? Have they even acquired the workstations before talking about November as the starting point for enrollment? Why the November rush? Has Afari Gyan given any consideration to our privacy, safety and policy issues as a nation? Already there are problems of uneven coverage, unreliable electricity and easy access to the 23,000 polling stations across Ghana. A reason why election results are delayed for several hours after the ordeal queueing to vote in the annihilating and debilitating sun. Civil rights advocates and IPAC should be worried including Government, that the privacy of Ghanaians would not be compromised to use biometrics. Because even when the technology works properly, personal data of citizens can be misused or abuse. There is also the existence of continued vulnerability of biometric data to theft, tampering, and unauthorized use or sale.

 As the deployment of biometric technologies promises to become ubiquitous over the coming years, the need for strong and explicit guidelines governing their uses also grows urgent. Let me cease this opportunity to propose to a potential national model in this regard an ct of parliament. These act should contain the following provisions: I) No person or organization shall obtain biometric identifiers for the purpose of commercial advantage without parliamentary authorization. II) A person or company shall not sell, lease or disclose biometric identifiers without individual consent and approval. III) Organizations storing biometric identifiers are responsible for preventing them unauthorized disclosure. IV) Government shall not sell or disclose biometric identifiers without individual consent except for criminal investigation. With less hypothesis and entertainment, now is the time to take the steps necessary to prevent the abuse of this seemingly inexorable technology.