Israeli-based Pangea IT, which specialises in the digital transformation of government and business services, has been awarded a tender from the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) to replace the biometric system for the country’s voter registry. The deal includes the complete build out of an advanced biometric system, training, and maintenance services.

A company release from Pangea indicated that the company will provide the Electoral Commission of Jamaica [EOJ] with an integrated centralised biometric system.

Pangea indicates that it is a supplier of digital identity, security, and e-payment solutions. The company specialises in the digital transformation of government services and enterprise business operations.

The international tender from the GOJ called on global businesses to apply, and Pangea’s proposal was selected from among international specialists in digital and biometric technologies for government services.

The solution for the GOJ will include installation, configuration, and commissioning of a multimodal automated biometric identification system (ABIS) based on two primary biometric identifiers — fingerprints and facial images — and all the attendant hardware and software components.

As part of the project, the company indicated that it will “provide software for dozens of nationwide biometric registration systems and support the solution’s integration with existing legacy systems of the Electoral Commission, like the elector registration system (ERS).”

Four million voters

Pangea said, “The system will support up to four million voters in Jamaica.” The company may have been tasked to future-proof the new digital system as Jamaica has half of that number on its voters list.

The company said that “to ensure robust election security and negate the potential for voter fraud, such as duplicate votes or deceased voters, the system will utilise advanced artificial intelligence-based biometric technologies for identifying fingerprints and facial recognition.”

Pangea has been contracted by the EOJ for five years, during which time it will provide continuous support and maintenance services.

Pangea said that, in the past decade, it has worked with many governments, providing digital solutions for their population registries. The projects, it said, have enabled these governments to digitally provide e-ID cards, birth and death certificates, passports, visas, driver’s licences, and other documents to tens of millions of citizens for the first time.

The company noted, “This includes delivering services to people who were previously not registered on government systems and were unable to benefit from government services, pay taxes, and benefit from the opportunities of social inclusion.

“In the past year, we have expanded our digital government services to Central American countries looking to advanced technologies to help them close the digital divide between them and their citizens,” says Uzy Rozenthal, senior vice-president and Government Department manager at Pangea. “Our team is already operating in Panama, Ecuador, and Guatemala, where we have signed several agreements and are actively looking to recruit country managers and sales and marketing staff.”

Following its Jamaica project, Pangea said that it is planning a more aggressive expansion into the South American market, a market that deals with similar challenges to their government counterparts in Central America and Africa.

Pangea maintains regional offices worldwide and a research and development centre located at the company headquarters in Israel.