Delivering a Credible Biometric Voter List Under Time Pressure

  • CASE STUDY
  • Burkina Faso
  • Voter Registration
burkina faso voter list deduplication_innovatrics
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Four Weeks to Create a Credible Voter List

Innovatrics was required to clean 4.4 million registrations with 10 fingerprint records per person in order to deliver a final voter list with only a single record per individual. For this project, Innovatrics needed to overcome a number of challenges.

The integrity of Burkina Faso’s national electoral registry was the subject of controversy and public debate. In order to restore the credibility of Burkina Faso’s electoral process, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) made the commitment to ensure voter identity. As part of this commitment, CENI identified the need for a highly secure biometric solution that would enable Burkina Faso’s election authorities the ability to generate a trustworthy list of eligible
voters.

  • Time Constraint

    4 weeks was allotted to deliver the final voter list, free of multiple registrations because of high costs and political impact of re-scheduling an election.

  • Accuracy

    A large portion of the voting population is rural, resulting in a high-percentage of low quality fingerprint records. Deduplication should therefore be highly accurate.

  • Reliability

    Because of concerns around the reliability of a stable power service, Innovatrics had to be prepared for potential blackouts that could delay the process.

  • Security

    The data had to be backed up at all times. Furthermore, the customer required that any servers housing the voter list could not be accessed from an outside network.

AFIS Flags Suspicious Records

Our WebAFIS Deduplication Service cleared the voter list of multiple registrations within 4 weeks. Innovatrics’ solution provided the right compromise threshold to clear 45 thousand duplicates in the database.

Suspicious records were easily checked and validated with the Adjudicator Station that visually compares fingerprint minutiae points and cores. Moreover, a Blind Search process was set in place to cross check fingers against potential mislabeling at the time of registration. Hence, corroborating individuals did not attempt to register multiple times by switching their fingers’ positioning with their right and left hands. This greatly improved the accuracy to avoid fraudulent attempts.

  • ExpressID AFIS

    Innovatrics IEngine™ core, high-speed fingerprint identification algorithm, reaching a matching speed of up to 85 million fingerprints per second

  • WebAFIS Deduplication Service

    Centrally located AFIS solution eliminates multiple registrations by the same individual

  • Adjudicator

    & software tool for manual post processing of suspicious candidates with advanced fingerprint checking functionalities

Trusted and Secure Elections Using Biometrics

Burkina Faso’s Independent National Electoral Commission succeeded at generating a biometrically verified National Electoral Registry for the Parliamentary and Municipal Elections of December 2012. WebAFIS Deduplication Service enabled CENI to achieve its goal of building a trusted, secure biometric voter list in time for the next elections.

The voter list was recognized as credible by every stakeholder including competing parties. The Elections were held on time, with every entity fully satisfied with the project.

  • 4.4 Million Citizens Enrolled in Just 4 Weeks

  • 45 Thousand Duplicates Cleared

“The Burkina Faso Elections project is deemed to be a great success; we wholeheartedly recommend Innovatrics’ WebAFIS technology to any client requiring reliable large-scale fingerprint matching solution accompanied by a dedicated team and support.”
Director
Tall Nouroudina
IT Commission Electorale Nationale Independente Burkina Faso
ABIS Datasheet Download

DATASHEET Biometrics, tailored

Innovatrics Automated Biometric Identification System

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