GEMALTO, is a French company who has been contracted to produce security tight identification documents with emphases on ID cards, and these documents will have several security checks. Gemalto is an international digital security company providing software applications, secure personal devices such as smart cards and tokens, and managed services. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of SIM cards. The new secured identification system has gone operational in the Cameroons. The Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh launched the system and inaugurated its centre on August the 9th 2016 in Yaounde.

Minister Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh observed that the new system was developed to counter the falsification of documents and will help the General Delegation for National Security to produce crime statistics and trace records of suspects- CRTV reported.

Reports say the Cameroonian government opted for Colour photograph which will be capsuled in the ID card, with no possibility of surface alteration of the photograph. There will be a transparent section in the middle of the card with a reduced negative of the ID card photo and some inscriptions at the edges of the card. The new ID cards will, however, be fabricated in Finland by a French company and the cards will have several security checks whose knowledge will be a secret shared between the contracted company and the DGSN. It’s going to be a biometric card with a micro cheap and the capacity to support online applications in absolute security- Reports Atungsiri Beltus who attended an expose from the GEMALTO team.

However, Cameroon state radio and television reported that the machines are set up to produce up to about 600 identity cards per hour. According to GEMALTO, the company running the new ID scheme, the cards are polycarbonates and include the use of advanced technology and software; a system they say is currently being solicited by many countries around the world.

Information filtered out that after the Yaounde centre for production situated at the Police Medical Centre, an annex centre will be created in Garoua and then 50 mobile posts will be established all over the country before the end of 2016. The CPDM regime recently announced that the old National Identity Cards will remain in use till they expire- reports CRTV.

God is still saying something.