GhanaCard: Is it a Compulsory Card? …If So What Would Happen If One Fails To Produce It On Demand?

Another milestone event has taken place in Ghana. The West-African nation now has a new Identity Card. It dovetails the Free SHS national policy which kicked off across Ghana on the 11^th of this month. This is another giant step made says this writer. And it could be described as a feather in the cap of the New Patriotic Party-government (NPP) as it‘s living up to its campaign promises in 2016.

Last Friday September 15, 2017 President Akufo-Addo launched an historic Ghana’s new identification card in Accra. As the first citizen of the nation Mr. Akufo-Addo was issued the first ID (Identity Card).

Registration for the ID is due to commence in November 2017 and end in November 2018.

GhanaCard as it’s known contains basic identification information including a photograph of the cardholder, along with a name, date of birth, height, a personal identification number that has been randomly generated and assigned to the holder and has an expiry date. Based on the age of the individual, the card will have either a 2-dimensional barcode or a Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) at the back which holds biometric information: the holder’s fingerprint in digitised templates as well as the holder’s signature.

Top of Form
“By law if you must prove your identity it’s only the Ghana Card that you can use to prove your identity, “says Kenneth Agyeman Attafuah the executive secretary of National Identification Authority (NIA).

“..Within a year from now when every Ghanaian in Ghana or abroad has been given the opportunity to register for the Ghana Card in the first instance for free and you fail to do that you would not be able to access certain services, facilities, and opportunities that are customarily available to the public,” Prof. Attafuah said.

The NIA Boss therefore urged all Ghanaians to take this great opportunity to register for the new GhanaCard the one card as he put it ‘that’s the passport for your social inclusion.’

Would this make Ghana one of the countries that make identity cards compulsory?

Per my checks online, as of 2015 there are only 9 countries that do not have any identity cards—viz Australia, Denmark, Fiji , India, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines and the United Kingdom. There are also 15 countries that have non-compulsory identity cards. They include: Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania Japan and Mexico.

In 1996 Privacy International (PI) in one of its publications stated that about 100 countries had enacted laws that made identity cards compulsory. That number could be much higher now. Here are a few of those countries—Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Serbia and Russia. This suggests that in these countries the card must be shown on demand by authorised personnel under specified circumstances. However, in some countries an alternative proof of identity such as driving license is acceptable.

Privacy International said that, ‘virtually no common law country has a card.”

Is Ghana a common law country? Yes, Ghana goes by common laws. The main difference between the two systems is that common law countries deal with case law which is in the form of published judicial opinions something of primary importance, whereas in civil systems, codified statuses predominate.

According to PI the term compulsory may have different meanings and implications in different countries. Possession of a card may only become compulsory at a certain age. And there may be a penalty for not carrying a card or other legally valid identification (a passport for foreigners) in some cases a person may be detained until identity is proven.

I observed the situation several years ago when I visited Dominican Republic-- the Caribbean nation that shares Hispaniola with Haiti to the west. Foreigners particularly Haitians who at the time outnumbered other foreigners in that country (they might still be) had to show their passports to prove identity on daily basis.

Speaking to the local media in Accra Prof. Attafuah said the new National Identification Card that was launched by the President Akufo-Addo would be the only card to prove one's identity as a Ghanaian.

“This card has all the internationally-recognised required features the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standard. “It’s is ISO certification,” he said. “And it’s a passport or there’s a passport on this card for travel within the West Africa sub region, when that e-gates of those other West African countries either available or open you can literally travel with this card without requiring paper passport.”

According to him, the project marked a significant milestone in the country’s search for a reliable national identification system that would give Ghanaians the regular benefit of a secured national identity, a formalised economy and a system of social inclusion and responsibility.

Features of GhanaCard
Again, the card bears personal information about the individual whose identity can be verified at all times. The NIA National Identity System utilizes three types of biometric technology for identification purposes. These are the fingerprints unique to each individual in the form of digitised templates, facial templates in the form of a digitised colour photo of the cardholder and Iris.

The Criminologist said the NIA has deployed cutting-edge technology that incorporates several layers of security features – physical, logical and technical – that could make the card difficult to forge and protect the personal information stored on the card. ‘These features allow only authorised persons to read the information and bonafide owners to use the card for purposes of identification’, he underscored.

Both citizens and non-citizens have the same ID card. The only distinguishing feature on the cards is, the country code in the Personal Identification Number (PIN) i.e. the PIN for Ghanaians start with the code “GHA” followed by ten digits “GHA-000000000-0 whilst that for Nigerians for example will read “NRG-000000000-0” per the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) country codes and foreigners card has NON-CITIZEN in bold red on the front of the card.

GhanaCard also has features of an eID
Electronic Identity Document (eID) – Your electronic identity as a citizen or foreigner is on the smart card chip. The smart card present in the new National ID will be dual interface – contact and contactless. Electronic identity documents can be used for many applications including:

What’s an interface dual card? It’s a debit or credit card with an embedded chip card that allows it to be used in both contact and contactless transactions. Dual interface chip cards also allow card readers to obtain the card’s identifying information through the use of a single chip.

In not too distant future citizens of the ECOWAS countries which are 15 countries acting as counter-signatories could use the ID travel without a copy of their passport to prove their identity.