News in Brief

NSI Group Enters Kenya After De La Rue Exit

NSI Group, a pan-African company specialising in secured documents and electronic payment solutions, has announced plans to establish a base in Kenya.

The move follows De La Rue’s decision to cease operations in Kenya by the end of March, leaving a gap in the market.

A statement from NSI Group said it will start an office in Nairobi in April. ‘We have decided to commence operations in Nairobi, Kenya by April this year, based on the enormous potential for expanding our business in the area,’ Richard Michel, the Chairman of NSI, said.

Since its foundation in Kigali, Rwanda in 2003, the NSI Group has been gradually expanding its presence in Africa with subsidiaries in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Djibouti.

The company seeks to drastically reduce the time it takes to make cards and cheque books available and to help control the cost of secure cards and documents so that they are accessible to as many people as possible, especially the unbanked.

NSI also offers institutions a wide range of secure documents that fit their budget, allowing them to guarantee the authenticity of the documents they issue. Currently the company supplies cheque books to 60 banks.

‘The main task is to design and produce security prints for various public services of the state and the private sector, whose counterfeiting and falsification or alteration are made difficult by means of appropriate technical processes and secure storage,’ NSI Group says.

Russification of Ukrainian Citizens Continues

ID & Secure Document News™ has previously reported on the use of government issued documents as a tool in the process of the ‘russification’ of Ukrainian citizens in occupied territories (see IDN August 2022).

And now, according to the mayor of Melitopol, a city in south-eastern Ukraine occupied by Russia since March 2022, that process is about to accelerate. According to the mayor, obtaining Russian passports is now necessary to perform essential tasks such as connecting to the internet, obtaining travel permits to other regions controlled by Russia in Ukraine, and receiving social benefits.

He stated that ‘occupiers have a plan to issue Russian passports to half of the population in the annexed territories of Ukraine this spring, and that by September, 80% of that population will have citizenship of the aggressor country.’ 

He emphasised that the Kremlin is resorting to these actions because they ‘want to make as many people as possible accomplices in their crimes.’

It should be added here that the ethnic, national and cultural mix in the occupied regions of Ukraine is complicated, with the majority of its inhabitants in several regions speaking Russian but who, if a series of opinion polls are to be believed, have a negative attitude toward control from Moscow ¹.

Cyprus to Upgrade IDs and Passports

The Cypriot Civil Registry and Migration Department is due to announce a tender to upgrade passports, identity cards, and residence permits.

According to a recent cabinet decision, the entire tender will be worth €41 million (including VAT) and will last for six years plus another five if successful from 2024 until 2035.

A report by Politis, the daily Greek-language newspaper, said that the government has placed a high level of importance on this project, and is due to consider applications from international companies that meet the technical criteria. The cabinet greenlighted the tender to be launched in the first three months of the year.

The new documentation is set to be available starting 2024, and will include biometric information, including photograph, fingerprints, and a digital signature. Asked to comment on whether other kinds of biometric information will be available to authorities with the new documentation, the civil registry department declined to answer, Politis said.

The Interior Ministry and its Civil Registry and Migration Department consider the project for the issuance of documentation as extremely important, since its execution will enable the state to meet its international and European obligations but also its obligation to citizens, by issuing modern documents with high security standards.

Finance Minister, Constantinos Petrides, has set some conditions for the new tender, with one being that the budget allocated to be moved to 2024, and the other being that the new contract ensures cost recovery.

The fees for people to receive these new documents will be determined by the new administration, which took office on 1 March. People who have valid documentation will not need to immediately change their passport, ID, or residence permit when the new ones begin to be issued. They will be allowed to wait until their documents expire.

Currently, Cypriot passports, IDs, and residence permits are issued by the Athens-based company Veridos Matsoukis.

Maldives Issues Contract for ID Card Design

The Republic of Maldives recently introduced digital ID in the country, but it will not be among the credentials voters can use to prove their identity when they go to the polls on 9 September to choose a new president.

This is according to the Elections Commission (EC), which says that electoral law in the country does not recognize digital ID as proof of ID for voting in a presidential election. The documents that are accepted as proof of ID are a national ID card, a passport, a passport card and a driving licence. EC Vice President Ismail Habeeb is reported as saying that efforts are being made to revise the laws in order to match them with the present realities.

The country is also advancing towards a new, digitized version of the national ID card, awarding a design contract to local firm Encrea.

The decision to change the design of the card, which has been in use for the past 39 years, was taken at a cabinet meeting in 2021 to incorporate modern security features and make it a smart card.

The government invited applications for the new design of the card in July last year. For the new card, Encrea’s design was selected from among those submitted in response to an open call. The redesign contract is estimated to be worth 200,000 Maldivian Rufiyaa (roughly US$13,000).

1 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60938544