The Electoral Commission has explained a new module of facial recognition feature in the ongoing voters registration exercise, insisting the newly deployed registration machines allows for recognizing registrants by face.
The commissions defence follows assertions by Vice President of policy think-tank IMANI Africa Bright Simons that the new system does not capture facial recognition which was one of the reasons the EC cited for procuring a new data system.
“No specialist equipment for facial biometrics were deployed. The LED lights used were paired with standard digital photography. Hence, the claims that any facial recognition requirements could not be met with existing visual data were all palpably false,” Bright Simons wrote in an article seen by Dreamzfmonline.com.
However, the EC in a statement said “It is obvious that the writer has a lack of understanding of technology. We wish to assure the general public that as part of the voters registration exercise, the commission is capturing both the fingerprints and faces of applicants.”
It explained further that “facial recognition is not solely a function of the hardware equipment that is employed. It is used with the facial recognition software that drives the process. Special 3D hardware is not required for facial recognition.”
The Commission added that the software and hardware being used have been selected to ensure the pictures captured meet the ICAO requirements.
