By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Tribune Staff Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
THE National Insurance Board has invested an estimated $400,000 into a new “smart card” registration system, with officials awaiting Cabinet’s approval for it to possibly be used as a national identification card that will hold sensitive information.
Labour Minister Shane Gibson said yesterday that the card, which is outfitted with several security features, will hold NIB data, including a person’s contribution status. If government approval is granted, additional data, including voter registration, social services and national health insurance information among other things may be programmed onto the card.
The “smart card” will replace the yellow paper NIB card currently in use and NIB teams will be stationed at both the Mall at Marathon and the Town Centre Mall from 11am to 7pm today to issue new cards.
“(The) smart card is able to store information from various departments within National Insurance and also one of the things that we are considering as well because of the biometric use of it, is to allow it to be used as a national identity card,” Mr Gibson said.
“We met with (a) Cabinet sub-committee headed by the minister of national security and with the team from National Insurance,” he added. “He is now in the process of putting together a report for the committee with recommendations. But it was something that Cabinet asked us to look into. And as soon as we submit the recommendations we would just be waiting on Cabinet’s approval to proceed if that is the position at the end of the day.”
Cecile Bethel, senior deputy director of operations at NIB, called the unveiling an historic event.
She said: “NIB is leveraging technology to do business better and smarter.
“(This is) another history making day for all of us. We replace the yellow paper registration card with this very attractive 21st century photo identification card. In May 2013 NIB rolled out a new registration system and this card is a natural end product of our new insurance administration system. The technology it embraces is new and it is offered at no cost.”
To obtain a copy of the “smart card” customers can fill out an application form available at NIB offices throughout the Bahamas.
Residents of New Providence, Grand Bahama, Governor’s Harbour, Eleuthera and Marsh Harbour, Abaco can have the cards printed immediately. Requests from other Family Islands will require a few days wait for the cards to be printed.
The “smart card” will show the National Insurance number, the full name and picture of a person age 16 and older.
An expiration date, authorisation signature and gender of the card holder also will be printed.
Children under 16 will not have a printed photograph on their cards.
Cards for seniors citizens, defined as those persons who are 60 years and older, will be tagged with a special yellow seniors label that will be placed just above the photograph.
Comments
sheeprunner12 9 years, 11 months ago
Good idea . Shane and Fred should collaborate and make this the mandatory national ID card for every Bahamian citizen at birth registration. Kill 2 birds with ONE stone.
Bahamas........................... welcome to the Mark of the Beast (officially)
ThisIsOurs 9 years, 11 months ago
I'm sorry but I'm suspicious of anything thing this man proposes that has a contract attached. Character really does count.
SP 9 years, 11 months ago
Labour Minister Shane Gibson and National Security Minister Bernard Nottage better have a very airtight plan to prevent the illegal Haitian administrative directorate from compromising the integrity of this new “smart card” registration system.
It is no secret that Haitians have effectively infiltrated and compromised police and defense forces, passport, visa and work permit administrations and rendered every Minister of Immigration in 30 years unable to deal with the Haitian infestation of our country.
This new “smart card” registration system could easily be the foundation, first step and catalyst to turning the corner on getting a handle on the Haitian problem.
Undoubtedly the Haitian apparatus has agents within NIB. These people need to be identified and placed under strict surveillance to guard the integrity of this new “smart card” registration system.
sheeprunner12 9 years, 11 months ago
Do we know?????????? Nothing was said about WHO is the contracted company ........ we just heard a ball park figure........$400,000
242orgetslu 9 years, 11 months ago
Across the inky-blue Gulf Stream from Florida, near the sheer edge of the Great Bahama Bank, a new island is emerging from the sea. Although it bears the appealing name Ocean Cay, this new island is not, and never will be, a palm-fringed paradise of the sort the Bahamian government promotes in travel ads. No brace of love doves would ever choose Ocean Cay for a honeymoon; no beauty in a brief bikini would waste her sweetness on such desert air. Of all the 3,000 islands and islets and cays in the Bahamas, Ocean Cay is the least lovely. It is a flat, roughly rectangular island which, when completed, will be 200 acres and will resemble a barren swatch of the Sahara. Ocean Cay does not need allure. It is being dredged up from the seabed by the Dillingham Corporation of Hawaii for an explicit purpose that will surely repel more tourists than it will attract. In simplest terms, Ocean Cay is a big sandpile on which the Dillingham Corporation will pile more sand that it will subsequently sell on the U.S. mainland. The sand that Dillingham is dredging is a specific form of calcium carbonate called aragonite, which is used primarily in the manufacture of cement and as a soil neutralizer. For the past 5,000 years or so, with the flood of the tide, waters from the deep have moved over the Bahamian shallows, usually warming them in the process so that some of the calcium carbonate in solution precipitated out. As a consequence, today along edges of the Great Bahama Bank there are broad drifts, long bars and curving barchans of pure aragonite. Limestone, the prime source of calcium carbonate, must be quarried, crushed and recrushed, and in some instances refined before it can be utilized. By contrast, the aragonite of the Bahamian shallows is loose and shifty stuff, easily sucked up by a hydraulic dredge from a depth of one or two fathoms. The largest granules in the Bahamian drifts are little more than a millimeter in diameter. Because of its fineness and purity, the Bahamian aragonite can be used, agriculturally or industrially, without much fuss and bother. It is a unique endowment. There are similar aragonite drifts scattered here and there in the warm shallows of the world, but nowhere as abundantly as in the Bahamas. In exchange for royalties, the Dillingham Corporation has exclusive rights in four Bahamian areas totaling 8,235 square miles. In these areas there are about four billion cubic yards—roughly 7.5 billion long tons—of aragonite. At rock-bottom price the whole deposit is worth more than $15 billion. An experienced dredging company like Dillingham should be able to suck up 10 million tons a year, which will net the Bahamian government an annual royalty of about $600,000.
akbar 9 years, 11 months ago
Why do I need a smart card for NIB only my number is important.
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