GPS tracking for stranded Jamaicans on re-entry?

Jamaicans now stranded overseas because of the closure of the island’s ports of entry to incoming passengers might have to subject themselves to GPS tracking on re-entry, as the Government is considering this option to allow them back into the island.

According to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Kamina Johnson Smith, the technology has been successfully used in other jurisdictions to ensure that quarantine guidelines are followed, and the Jamaican Government is looking to make it a part of the re-entry protocols for the returning Jamaicans."

...She said the GPS tracking that is being considered will be part of the home quarantine mechanism, which the Government is strengthening by having sufficient capacity to verify home addresses and the locations provided by the information that will be given before the individuals are allowed re-entry.

According to Johnson Smith, while the GPS app is not yet ready, it was tested during a recent repatriation exercise that was carried out by the Government of Jamaica and that of Antigua and Barbuda, in which both countries exchanged nationals that were stranded in the other country. She said the app will be available in Google PlayStore and Apple App Store.

Johnson Smith warned that airlines will not accept any bookings without the authorisation certificate that will only be available through the website for access to the app to apply to re-enter the country.

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Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, says the Cabinet will soon consider the revised National Identification System (NIDS) Bill, following which it will be brought to the House of Representatives.

Providing an update in the House of Representatives on April 28, Mr. Holness said the NIDS policy document was now before the Chief Parliamentary Counsel (CPC).

“The NIDS policy has been approved, the consultations were done and the policy is now with the CPC and a draft Bill is being prepared that will come to Cabinet, approved at the Legislation Committee and then finally will come to Parliament,” he noted.

“We are putting this on a fast track because we see how very important it is to have identification as a means of being able to give support, protection and to help with order in the society,” Mr. Holness added.

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Attorney Vaughn Bignall last Friday filed a lawsuit against a senior superintendent of police and the attorney general for what he described as a “warrantless search” of his offices in Half-Way-Tree.

In the statement of claim Bignall — who had posted a video of the police search on social media — said that on April 22, 2020 Senior Superintendent Jacqueline Coombs and police officers “ostensibly under her command” demanded access to his law offices to conduct the search.

Bignall said he did not consent to the search, and as such his “constitutional rights were abrogated, abridged and/or infringed” by the senior superintendent and police officers under her command.

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Yet another Corporate Area-based school has found itself embroiled in controversy, this time for allegedly collecting fingerprints from students.

Merl Grove High School is reported to have begun collecting the biometric data from students during its orientation exercise at the start of the new academic year as part of a new attendance record-keeping system.

“So they started with grade seven, and we thought [because we are] in sixth form that we didn’t have to do it. We thought they were just starting with grade seven since they are the new batch, but they did every single grade straight up to upper six,” a sixth-form student told The Gleaner yesterday.

The student, who spoke to our news team on condition of anonymity, said that her fingerprints were taken last week.

“It was [done] in the teachers’ lounge. Two people from [a security company] came, and they had a computer with our names on it and the machine where we should put our finger. I placed my finger there about two or three times, and it recorded it or scanned it,” she said.

Other students shared similar accounts yesterday when The Gleaner visited the 95-year-old girls’ school, which is located on Constant Spring Road in St Andrew.

The student’s mother, who only found out about the exercise after the biometric data had been collected, was appalled.

“I feel very distressed and disrespected because something as important as this – and you know that biometric data has been in the headlines – the school went ahead, did this, and never said anything. There was no letter. When the school wants to get in touch with me, they do. I get emails, I get phone calls. [This time], I got nothing,” said the mother, who also did not want to be named.

The Reverend Anthony White, chairman of the school board, told The Gleaner yesterday that he was unaware of any such system at the St Andrew-based institution.

“We had a badge-reading device that persons were using to get students to sign. No fingerprint device,” he said. “There is no fingerprint device at the school for the student to sign in or anything like that.”

It is understood that teachers currently use a card to sign in for work.

...It was revealed this week that Mona High School in St Andrew had implemented a biometric system for teachers to sign in on arrival at work. Principal Keven Jones said that it was instituted to combat dishonesty among some teachers who were falsifying their attendance records.

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