“The larger aim is to eliminate voter fraud by ensuring that each eligible citizen gets a single vote.”

National and local elections were held yesterday in the Philippines, and biometric technology from Gemalto played a key role.

The company has revealed that it was selected, together with domestic IT firm Nextix, to provide biometric voter identification technology to the Philippines’ Commission on Elections, or ‘Comelec’. This was realized in the form of 30,000 tablet devices equipped with fingerprint readers, called Voter Registration Verification Tablets. The tablets were designed to scan a citizen’s fingerprint and match it against Comelec’s voter database, eliminating the need for the voter to present government ID.

It isn’t simply about convenience, of course. The larger aim is to eliminate voter fraud by ensuring that each eligible citizen gets a single vote.

Comelec has previously undertaken extensive efforts to collect citizens’ fingerprint data for the purpose of biometric polling, an effort stretching back several years. Government authorities have also recently been exploring the idea of biometric government ID more broadly, further illustrating the Philippines’ enthusiasm for this kind of technology.

Gemalto’s involvement in the program is a testament to the company’s prominence as a solutions provider for large-scale government programs, and to its value to Thales, which recently finalized its acquisition of the firm.

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(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)