The implementation of infrastructure that will facilitate the production of digital birth certificates for Jamaicans is now 90 per cent complete.

This from Warren Vernon, programme director for the National Identification System (NIDS), who said the National Public Key Infrastructure (NPKI) project is expected to be completed by March 2021.

According to the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), Vernon was responding to questions posed by member of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on NIDS legislation, Julian Robinson, during its meeting on Tuesday (January 5).

He informed that with the NPKI in place, it is also expected that by March “we’ll also be in a position to launch phase one of the project, which is to allow the public to go online, request a copy of your birth certificate, a digital copy which you take anywhere in the world and they can verify it [and] tie it back to the security framework for the NPKI”.

According to the JIS, the NPKI is part of the non-NIDS aspect of the Government’s impending NIDS Programme, which seeks to create a unique, reliable and secure way of verifying an individual’s identity.

The NPKI project aims to make Jamaica a more digital society in which there is universal use of information and information and communications technology (ICT) in all spheres, such as home, work, school and recreation.

Vernon added that the NIDS team is also currently working with Tax Administration Jamaica, the Registrar General’s Department (RGD), Jamaica Post, e-Gov, and a number of other government entities, including the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information to digitise their services.

JIS reported that in providing further updates on the NIDS implementation, Vernon informed that the team has defined all of the business processes for the NIDS programme, defined all the requirements for the system and also for the national identification card.

“We are at a stage now where we are waiting on the legislative framework so that… any new recommendations that will come out of this process, we can tweak. But if we are able to get the legal framework in place by let’s say April/May, we should be in position by September 2021 to personalise or to create the first national identification card,” he said, adding that the plan is to then start piloting the programme.