Maldivians voice against Israeli company tech in digital ID
"This is a law accepted by all developed countries in the world and that is why we entrusted it to the company”.
By
Aminath Shifleen
Some Maldivians have expressed concern and criticised the government for employing an Israeli company’s technology in providing facial recognition features of E-Faas, which is the national digital identification mechanism that provides government services to the public.
The mobile application of Maldives's digital identity platform, E-Faas, features facial recognition by Sum and Substance Ltd better known as SumSub, an Israeli company registered in the UK.
The war between Israel and the Palestinians is escalating, with hundreds of Palestinians dying in Israeli attacks for decades in the past. Many people are calling for a boycott of Israeli products used in Maldives.
Among them, the biggest concern by people on social media is the facial recognition service of E-Faas.
Some commenters on social media said the service alone costs Maldives thousands of dollars every year in payments to Israel. They also believe that this will give Israel access to the personal information of Maldivians.
"This is very easy for Maldivian developers to do. And this will not share Maldivian data with Israel," wrote someone in X.
Sumsub has been registered in the UK since 2015. The company's CEO and founder, many other executives are also Israelis.
On these concerns of some Maldivians, the National Centre for Information Technology (NCIT), which facilitates the services on E-Faas, said that even if the facial recognition feature is provided by a foreign company, it will not keep or see any Maldivian's personal information.
According to the State Minister of Technology, Mohamed Shareef, facial recognition looks at two things. It compares a person's official photo with a current one to verify the service recipient and make sure that it is correct. Through the picture, it will also be possible to verify whether the person is alive or authentic, he said.
"But they (the company) will only have access to the photograph. The company will not know who it is, a name or address," Shareef said.
He said Sumsub was entrusted with the service because it operates under UK law.
"The photo information shared here is also very sensitive. So before we entrusted this service to a company, we checked which country's law protects it. When we checked, we found that it is governed by UK data protection law," he said.
"This is a law accepted by all developed countries in the world and that is why we entrusted it to the company”.
He said that since there is no data storage law in Maldives, it would be better to store this information under a law accepted by many countries around the world.
Shareef said the issue is more emotional than technical at the moment, which rings true in light of the emotional comments made to the posts in context.
"I myself don't want to do things in the interest of the Israeli people, but hat would be an emotional decision," Shareef said.
"However, we are looking at how to proceed from this point on”.
