MONTEGO BAY, St James — Residents of Kingston amd St Andrew could obtain their National Identification System (NIDS) cards as early as August when a pilot programme is expected to be rolled out in the two parishes.

According to minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister Floyd Green, following the pilot there will be an islandwide roll-out of the identification system late this year to early 2023.

The plan, said Green is to start the pilot with five enrolment centres where people come in and sign up, “and we will do the verification and get them their cards”.

“… So, once we start that pilot process, clearly we will take the learnings from that and then move to the islandwide roll-out,” said Green.

He said that the task force to implement the identification system was recently approved by Cabinet.

“We just crossed a big milestone because Cabinet has approved an implementation task force, a joint ministerial entity that I will chair, that will drive the implementation. What it will do is bring together critical agencies of government such as Tax Administration Jamaica, critical ministries like the Ministry of Labour and Social Security along with our NIDS project team, private sector, and our banks. We will look now at the utilisation of the National Identification System to ensure that the data bases are speaking to each other. Government is really moving to digitise,” Green stated.

“For us the National Identification System is a key. What we really want to do is to unlock the digital service, so moving forward we expect to have our first meeting of the implementation the end of this month, and then we will continue to roll out towards the pilot programme which will happen later this year.”

Green said the new identification system will definitely result in monetary savings for Government. More information, he said, will be available at the end of the year about the level of savings.

Government, Green said, has already started looking at areas where there can be savings. He said it is the possibile, for example, to use the NIDS identification card for drivers instead of them having a licence.

“A consultant… will look at all the high-value use cases and will put a monetary figure to it — because you may need to also input some resources to ensure that you have the software that you need for that — and then the consultant will tell us, in a real way, what are the greatest savings from what processes.”

Regulations, said the minister, will be taken to Parliament shortly that will further strengthen provisions regarding the use of data under NIDS.

“Those regulations specifically will speak to third-party access, how you can access the data, under what circumstances, what are the forms, what sort of authorisation do you need to get from the data holder and the person who is providing the data. So those regulations, I expect, will come to the House within another three months. They will supplement what we already have in the Act,” he argued.

Green, who provides ministerial and policy guidance for the implementation of NIDS, was speaking to reporters in Montego Bay following a sensitisation session with the Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College staff and students on Wednesday, using the theme ‘Creating a Digital Jamaica’.

Jamaica’s National Identification System, Green sought to assure, will provide a comprehensive and secure structure to enable the collection and storage of identity information.

This secure voluntary tool, he said, can also verify an individual’s identity, facilitate the electronic signing of documents, and securely access a range of government services online.