The Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) has labeled as ‘false’ a report in today’s Sunday Gleaner which claimed the Commission was selling voter data to third parties.

In a statement this afternoon, the ECJ said neither it nor the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) sells access or grants access to the elector registration voter identification database which includes electors’ biometric and demographic information.

“The EOJ has created an extract of the identification card database for the purpose of ID verification that is granted to mainly government regulated institutions,” the ECJ said.

“This database utilised by these entities, of electors’ voter ID card information, assists with authentication of voter ID cards which are required by these entities to be presented by the elector who owns the card, and therefore necessitates authorisation which requires the verification of the information of the EOJ identification service.”

VOTER ID USED AS NATIONAL ID

According to the ECJ, the EOJ voter ID card which is regarded as the National ID card and is widely used across the country for opening bank accounts, collecting remittances and facilitating access to loans at a number of entities, “like many other forms of identification in Jamaica, requires corroboration by the responsible organisation which houses and maintains such a database, who in this context is the EOJ/ ECJ as mandated by the Representation of the People’s Act (ROPA), from those using the voter ID card”.

The ECJ said the fee charged to these institutions in need of verifying electors’ card information is the actual cost for maintenance of the replica database and “not a scheme for the ECJ/EOJ to be profiteering from the personal information of its stakeholders”.

The Commission continued: “The process of an elector presenting his or her card to an entity, indicating to the entity that this is a genuine EOJ voter ID card issued by the EOJ requires these entities to do the necessary verification of the card.

“This verification process can only be accessed by these entities with the card holders’ unique identification number represented on each voter ID card.”