Privacy built in - Israelis among overseas experts to help engineer NIDS for data security; $400m cut from project's budget

Israeli cybersecurity specialists were among a number of experts who advised the Jamaican Government about key aspects of the proposed structure that will govern Jamaica's National Identification System (NIDS).

Warren Vernon, programme director for the NIDS, confirmed yesterday that along with the Israelis, experts from Jamaica, France, Uruguay, and the Inter-American Development Bank were brought in to conduct a detailed privacy and security review of the user requirements for the soon-to-be-implemented system.

Vernon revealed, too, that the programme, which is the subject of a court challenge by the parliamentary Opposition, is proposed to start next September with a pilot project for all public-sector employees.

According to him, the user requirements for the NIDS were developed last February and have been subjected to rigorous testing.

"When you building any software solution, whether you taking it off the shelf or you building it from scratch, you have to begin the life cycle with what you call your business or user requirements," Vernon told The Gleaner.

"Those requirements were developed last year, and we took a decision internally, to be absolutely sure, to do a detailed privacy and security review of the requirements to make sure that we have everything in place to protect all Jamaicans in our database and in terms of privacy."

He indicated that the review was completed in July last year and said that the NIDS Secretariat was "absolutely" satisfied with the outcome.

Vernon said that the review recommended, among other things, the use of "mobile IDs".

"As you know, mobile ID is key in this day and age just to ensure that persons can have digital IDs," he explained.

Vernon revealed, too, that there were a number of recommendations "to help with security and to ensure that there is privacy."

$848 MILLION ALLOCATED TO NIDS

The disclosures by the NIDS programme director come amid plans by the Government to cut $400 million from the project. According to figures contained in the First Supplementary Estimates for the current fiscal year, the Government has revised its allocation for the implementation of the NIDS from $1.2 billion, which was approved in March, to just over $848 million.

"Revised requirement due to slower-than-programmed project execution," was the explanation given in the estimate, which was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday by finance minister Dr Nigel Clarke.

Vernon revealed that it was the secretariat that asked the Government to reduce its budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year but made it clear that this was not an indication that the project had been pushed back.

"We informed them that based on where we are, we would not spend that $1.2 billion [which was included in the budget passed in March], so we asked them to reduce the budget by the $400 million," he explained.

"The project is not slowing down. The project is, in fact, moving. We are just making sure we do everything the right way."

The $400 million was earmarked to fund, among other things, the transformation of the Registrar General Department to establish the NIDs, modification of the enrolment sites, and to mount a public education campaign around the project.

Through the assignment of a personal National Identification Number, the NIDS was established to digitally register all Jamaicans.

Vernon said that enrolment will be done at post offices islandwide and disclosed that 43 post offices were being modified to facilitate this.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com