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Editorial
Americans may wait a long time for a Nigerian smart card
Friday, May 31, 2013
It's not quite "666" tattooed on your forehead, but an African nation's new national ID card may give pause to believers of prophesy and civil libertarians alike.
Nigeria, known more for email scams than legitimate financial advances, has joined forces with a credit card company to create an electronic payment system using MasterCard-branded National Identity Smart Cards.
In its first phase, the program will provide all Nigerians age 16 and older, as well as residents who have lived there for more than two years with the new multipurpose identity card which they will use to deposit funds and pay bills, buy goods and services anywhere MasterCard is accepted and make many other types of financial transactions that can be done electronically.
The card, which unlike the simple magnet cards most of us carry, employs an electronic chip and requires the user to input a PIN number.
But it's not just a glorified ATM card. Nigeria's new National Identity Smart Card will incorporate the unique National Identification Numbers of duly registered persons in the country, which involves recording the individual's demographic and biometric date (10 fingerprints, facial picture and digital signature, used to authenticate the cardholder and eliminate fraud and embezzlement).
The resulting National Identity Database can then be used to integrate the person's driver's license, voter registration, health insurance, tax ID, social security-type benefits and much other information.
Once enough people have been signed up, the National Identity Management Commission plans to introduce more than 100 million cards to Nigeria's 167+ million citizens.
We probably should be happy to go ahead and let Nigeria try a national ID card first, ironing out problems of identity theft and finding ways to keep the government from using our private information improperly.
Given the growing distrust of federal involvment in American red states, it will be a long time before Americans embrace a Nigerian financial tool.