The first pilot enrolment site, where citizens will be able to register for the new National Identification System (NIDS), will be completed in approximately two weeks.

The location is at the Central Sorting Office on South Camp Road in Kingston and is the first of five sites that will be activated across Kingston and St Andrew by early October, the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) reported last week.

Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister Floyd Green disclosed the details after touring the site with the Productive Business Solutions (PBS) consortium on Thursday, August 11, 2022.

The PBS consortium is tasked with implementing the NIDS Solutions.

“I’m really happy to see the progress and that we’re moving in the right direction. We had indicated that we wanted to have our first enrolment site up and ready by August, and based on the trajectory it should be completed in two weeks or so,” JIS reported Green as saying.

Works currently being finalised include the installation of electrical ports, equipment testing, and infrastructure fine-tuning.

The site will feature workstations designed to accommodate privacy and equipment for biometric captures such as fingerprint scanners, document scanners, a camera and a signature pad.

Collected information will be stored directly in the Government’s primary and secondary data centres.

Minister Green also noted that the production site for making the cards is “ready and is in the phase of doing testing”.

“It was really impressive to see the time that it took [to make the card], how quick it was and also the quality,” he stated.

“I think Jamaicans must rest assured that we are taking the highest level of security cautions in the preparations of these cards and the process that we will go through in terms of inputting the information,” he emphasised.

He estimated that after the pilot programme comes into effect, NIDS will be rolled out to the general public in 2023.

“I’m very happy that we’re heading in the right direction and look forward to this in our 60th Independence celebration that we will have our National Identification System up and running,” Minister Green stated.