Get a national consensus on crime, make the ID a priority and reduce bureaucracy in business transactions.
Those are what the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica, PSOJ, says should be areas of focus in 2020, to improve the nation’s economic growth rate.
PSOJ Wants Consensus On Crime, National ID For 2020
The following is information about the National Identification System
What Data Will Be Collected National Identification
There are three categories of data that the National Identification System (NIDS) will keep:
a. Biographic – e.g. name, address, email, phone number
b. Biometric (which uniquely identifies a person) – e.g. photograph and fingerprint
c. Demographic – e.g. workplace, profession, family status, education level and religion
If a person is unable to provide fingerprints, secondary biometric data may be captured such as an iris (eye) scan. Persons with disabilities that are unable to give biometric information will be verified instead by a special process to be determined by the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD) and the National Identification and Registration Authority(NIRA).
NIDS does not collect any data not already being collected by other Government agencies for other purposes. DNA, political affiliation and sexual orientation WILL NOT be collected and these items are specifically omitted from the data collection and storage process.
NIDS Facts
National Identification System (NIDS)
What Is A Smart Card?
Cambridge Dictionary
Merriam Webster explains that
a small plastic card that has a built-in microprocessor to store and process data and records
PC Mag gives more information about Smart Cards
A credit card or ID card that contains a chip. When inserted into a reader (contact card) or held within a few inches of the reader (contactless), data are transferred to a central computer. Also called a "chip card," smart credit and debit cards adhere to the Europay, MasterCard, Visa standard (see EMV). Smart cards can also be programmed to self-destruct if the wrong password is entered too many times. As a financial transaction card, it can be loaded with digital money.
Contactless Smart Cards Are Like Passive RFID
Like an RFID tag used to track merchandise and vehicles, a contactless smart card is also energized by receiving a radio frequency (RF) transmitted over the air. However, the smart card uses a microcontroller that can provide authentication, encryption and financial processing, whereas RFID tags generally contain only identification data.
HowStuffWorks also explains the following:
A smart card resembles a credit card in size and shape, but inside it is completely different. First of all, it has an inside -- a normal credit card is a simple piece of plastic. The inside of a smart card usually contains an embedded microprocessor. The microprocessor is under a gold contact pad on one side of the card. Think of the microprocessor as replacing the usual magnetic stripe on a credit card or debit card.
Smart cards are much more popular in Europe than in the United States. In Europe, the health insurance and banking industries use smart cards extensively. Every German citizen has a smart card for health insurance. Even though smart cards have been around in their modern form for at least a decade, they are just starting to take off in the United States.
... The most common smart card applications are:
- Credit cards
- Electronic cash
- Computer security systems
- Wireless communication
- Loyalty systems (like frequent flyer points)
- Banking
- Satellite TV
- Government identification
Smart cards can be used with a smart-card reader attachment to a personal computer to authenticate a user. Web browsers also can use smart card technology to supplement Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for improved security of Internet transactions. Visa's Smart Card FAQ shows how online purchases work using a smart card and a PC equipped with a smart-card reader. Smart-card readers can also be found in mobile phones and vending machines.
Kingston needs more than technology to become a smart city — C&W, ICT executive
“Stakeholder engagement, public-private partnerships and the successful navigation of social issues are critical milestones to Kingston becoming a smart city — technology cannot be the primary focus,” were the thoughts of senior director of C&W Business Jamaica, Delroy McLean at the recently concluded Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ) Private Equity, Infrastructure, SMEs, Entrepreneurship & Innovation Conference held at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel.
...He then encouraged a collaborative approach where Government leverages technology and the expertise of the private sector to create a connected environment.
“There needs to be a link between 'smart initiatives' such as street Wi-Fi, smart parking, smart street lights and closed-circuit televisions (CCTV) with current Government-led accessibility programmes which increase disabled access, create safer communities and improve urban design.”
He continued, “making Kingston into a smart city requires collaboration and engagement on all levels. If this is not achieved, we will have a city with the latest technology but without people and businesses who are ready to make the most of it.”
Minister of Local Government and Community Development Noel Arscott has pledged maximum support for the pilot project to establish a Smart City Integrated Operating Control Centre (IOCC) for the resort town of Montego Bay.
"I am in full support of this initiative as it displays some level of advancement in the Local Government reform process and it also provides for a greater level of sustainable development both at the local and national levels," Arscott said.
Arscott explained that with the implementation of the system, the city will be able to overcome "many of the urban challenges impeding a smart and sustainable city development".
The IOCC project, which will involve the installation of closed-circuit cameras, will have functions for traffic management, crime and disaster prevention.
In 2011, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) launched the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI) to assist cities with populations between 100,000 and two million people.
In 2012, the IDB conducted a special mission in Jamaica to start talks with various stakeholders about the ESCI.
Montego Bay to operate as a ‘Smart City’
Government on Tuesday signed a US$68 million loan agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank for the National Identification System (NIDS).
The Andrew Holness-led administration has for months been promoting the ID system as a transformational tool that will help develop a digital society and promote economic development.
IDB President Development Bank President Luis Moreno on Tuesday reiterated the economic benefits of NIDS, making reference to the rise of electronic commerce in China.
“Countries like China, where a company like Alipay and Alibaba have been able to today move billions of dollars, and the Chinese consumers are doing electronic commerce. You look today, electronic commerce is moving at a rate of 30 per cent and traditional commerce at five per cent,” Moreno said.
NIDS gets IDB backing; Gov’t signs loan deal
Privacy Concerns In Smart Cities
Local governments across the world are in the middle of technological and economic developments that come together in the catch-all label of ‘smart cities’. In a smart city, ICT-infused infrastructures enable the extensive monitoring and steering of city maintenance, mobility, air and water quality, energy usage, visitor movements, neighborhood sentiment, and so on.
Evidently, such processes use and produce massive amounts of data. In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, for instance, the traffic authority monitors about 22,000 vehicle movements every morning,1 while the regional environment agency produces hourly data about air quality from sensors across greater Rotterdam resulting in over 175,000 observations per year. The promise of such large amounts of data for smarter management of cities extends to other sectors as well such as (predictive) policing, crowd control or public sentiment monitoring.
The notion of data, in this context, extends beyond the big numbers churned out by monitoring technologies, but also includes the data present in city registers, the data from government or corporate surveys and the data from social media updates.
These data are ever more often combined and linked in order to produce joint indicators of city well-being, economic vitality or safety. Increasingly, local governments make these data also available to the wider public.
All of this raises issues about who has legitimate access, which data can be opened up to public usage, what is the appropriate privacy framework for the linkage of different data? In these discussions, issues like political and public acceptance of smart cities are important as is the question of everyday experiences in such ‘datafied’ cities (Powell, 2014).
While some claim that ‘big data’ will help cities become richer, cleaner and more efficient, others argue that cities will turn into data-driven robotic places where creativity and deviance have no place. Kitchin (2014a) argues that there is little attention for such ‘politics of city data’ nor for the question how particular practices of data collection and analysis may have problematic social effects.
He adds that the ubiquitous collection of data about all city processes may produce ‘panoptic’ cities, in which “systems that seek to enable more effective modes of governance [may] also threaten to stifle rights to privacy, confidentiality, and freedom of expression” (p 12).
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