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NIDS pilot pushed back

Published:Wednesday | January 2, 2019 | 12:00 AMJason Cross/Gleaner Writer

The roll-out of the National Identification System (NIDS) pilot project, which was scheduled for this month, has been pushed back to the second half of 2019, a member of the NIDS team has revealed.

NIDS' public relations and marketing manager Richard Delapenha told The Gleaner yesterday that regardless of the rulings made by the Supreme Court on whether aspects of the NIDS are unconstitutional, the system will be rolled out although the projected January start of the pilot is no longer possible.

He said that the team was still busy, putting together necessary details to ensure that the system runs properly.

The pilot will only include a sample group from within the public sector, but Delapenha said that he was encouraged by the number of Jamaicans who have expressed an interest in participating in the pilot.

"We have a few people who have actually reached out to us, volunteering to be a part of the pilot, but they don't fall in the category of public-sector workers. I don't want to give an exact month [for the start], but when we test the system on our sample group of government workers, if there are any issues to fix, that is when we would fix those issues before it is rolled out nationally."

jason.cross@gleanerjm.com