Benin / Digital identity and citizenship: E-passport, a guarantee of reliability!

Benin launched electronic passport to comply with international standards. But many pitfalls remain on the process of issuance of that valuable travel document in a country where lot of citizens lack birth certificates.

Marie-Louise Felicite BIDIAS

                                                           E-passport a guarantee...

Cotonou, Bénin, march 2020. The sun was scorch in this afternoon and yet a crowd of men and women was gathered in front of the immigration office.  The nationals are there to establish or renew their passports and for the foreigners, the aim is to renew their residence permits. Suddenly, a police officer shouted:  "Only those concerned are allowed to enter here". He was standing in middle of the small gate to prevent unwanted people to enter. He added: "if you are here to accompany an adult person, please step back because they can speak for themselves. The policeman’s firm and challenging tone was intended to deter anyone from going through by force.

In a more friendly voice, he said: "we accept adult persons accompanying minors and seniors. The rest, go home!"

In order to address frauds on documents, identity theft, threats of terrorism and cybercrime, Benin decided to issue biometrics travel documents like most of countries in the world. This program implemented by the ministry of domestic affairs and public safety started in November 2017. 

Providing digital identity of citizens in Africa is easily said than done. According to the World Bank the continent account for half of the 1.1 billion people around the world unable to prove their identity. In To address this issue, the government of Benin took costly initiatives aimed at providing thousands of people with birth certificates. Acute Market Intelligence, a market research organization, said that the only market of biometric and digital identity papers in Africa is estimated at 1.4 billion euros.

72 hours to get an E-passport

Also known as digital passport and electronic passport, e-passport is a traditional passport with an embedded chip that contains specific information on the holder. That information includes ID photo and fingerprints. Commissioner Ghislaine Bocovo, head of the department of Travel document at the ministry of domestic affairs said that it takes only 72 hours for citizens to get their biometric passport provided they have all the required documentation i "Once the application has been submitted, the process follows 5 or 6 steps, depending on the case," she said. The verification of the application is done in front of the applicant. It allows to make sure, among others, that the applicant is of Beninese citizenship.  At the enrollment station, identity, address, family history and other information is recorded in the database.  This is where applications are checked in order to detect frauds. 

Privacy is a concern in Benin as government collect personal information but the Commissioner said that safety measures are taken with the collaboration of the body in charge of the protection of personal data. After all these verifications, a receipt is given to the applicant to check the progress of the file at the counter.

The passport application then lands to the department of validation for a new verification of the documents provided for the passport. "If there are ambiguities, we ask to meet the parents to ensure the authenticity of the act, to find out if the information is true or false," said Mrs. Bocovo. According to her, when the passport is printed, there are so many security keys that a counterfeiter cannot access them. "The system is reliable and secure," she reassures. "At each stage of the process, we can detect counterfeiters. We asks tricky questions to see if the documents supplied belong to the applicant."

At the printing department, agents proceed with another quality check to make sure the digital information is the same on the physical documents. "If anomalies are detected, the application is returned to the study and validation department," said Ghislaine Boccovo. The department also is responsible for laminating and introducing security keys.

After all this process, the passport and the application are sent to the delivery department where applicants have to give their fingerprints to make sure they are compliant. After that each applicant has to proof their identity before the passport is handed to them. If the person is not available, a power of attorney must be signed at the town hall or the court.

Roméo Kintohoundji, chairman of the Beninese Association for the Promotion of Digital Technology, said that 2016 the government of Benin decided to put digital technology in the heart of its policy. "Therefore multiple agencies have been created", he said. These include the National Information Systems Security Agency (Assi) and the Computer Incident Response Center (Bj.Csirt). Those agencies are kind of digital firefighters of Benin. "When a government website is hacked or is under threat, it is the Bj.Csirt which intervenes while other agencies are dedicated to counteract cybercrime. Presently, the country is ranked 8^th in cybersecurity on the African continent, according to a survey by the International Telecommunication Union (Uit).

                                                           ...to travel on the world

A very long way!

If in 72 hours, some Beninese citizens are lucky to obtain their precious travel document, for others, like Venance Tonogbe, journalist born in Abomey (200 km from Cotonou), it has not been easy at all. "It took about a whole year to have my digital passport. During that time, I was forced to travel many times between Cotonou and Abomey. The reason was that the administration did not find the strain of my birth certificate, an important document, which had to be provided with the application. I had to return to the town hall of Abomey where I was told that they couldn’t find the document”, he recounted. So, he had no choice then but to apply for the cancellation of his birth certificate and to apply for a new one. And this led him also to the Court that is the only body that will authorize to establish a new birth certificate.

But his ordeal did not stop there. Before the judge grants permission, he had to wait for a hearing session. "I was summoned to a hearing to justify that I am a Benin national before the court authorizes that my old birth certificate be canceled and that the town hall remake me a new strain. So, he paid fees and waited for the trial to be scheduled. “The hearing has been postponed many times. For almost a year, I’ve been traveling between Cotonou where I live and Abomey”, said Venance Tonogbé. And when finally, the hearing took place, he had again to go back and forth to the town hall and to the court to get his document done.

After this long process, Mr. Tonogbe submitted anew his passport application at the Immigration office in Cotonou. To his surprise, two days later his application was rejected on the ground that the reference numbers on the new birth certificate and the strain do not match. To fix that, he was asked to cancel his national identity card and to establish a new one at the Cotonou Prefecture. He complied and, finally, after 72 hours, he obtains his biometric passport!

"It is not always easy to get a passport, especially when your documents are not up to date," said Paulin Gbéji, a motor parts seller in Porto Novo. "It was also the problem of the strain of my birth certificate which had complicated the establishment of my passport”, he said adding: “I do not know how at the time my parents had established my birth certificate. It took a trial at the court which was long and painful, but I ended up having it and I was able to travel."

Benin population is estimated at 12 million people but few of them have a passport. Ghislaine Bocovo, the officer in charge of the department of Travel at the Immigration says that in 2019, around 49,000 biometric passports were issued, 43,000 in 2018 and more than 51,000 in 2017. "We do our best to satisfy applicants", she said.

Benin nationals living abroad can contact diplomatic representations to apply for passports. Libreville, Pretoria, Berlin, London, Washington, Paris, Moscow and Beijing. "Enrollment kits have been installed and staff have been trained and application forms are also available. Physical data sent are sent through an express mail company in the form of diplomatic bags." ''There is no problem, after the personalization, the files are sent to the secretariat of the Travel Titles service which send them back by the same way. The company sends them to these representations which proceed to their restitution. "Again in 72 hours, a Benin citizen from abroad can also obtain their passport," she said.

Protecting digital information

In Benin, the law adopted in 2017 regulated the Digital Code, made significant improvements to several laws concerning digital. The heavy document of more than 600 pages contains sections on the usage of personal data, the protection of personal data, authorizations for the protection of personal data. Article 385 stipulates that personal data must be treated confidentially and be protected. Article 411 explains the processing of personal data by the public agents. Article 425 speaks of the obligation of confidentiality. "The processing of personal data is confidential. It is carried out exclusively by persons who act under the authority of the data controller and only on instructions, except by virtue of a contrary legal obligation". Thus, the Personal Data Protection Authority, ensures the application of the provisions of this book and respect for privacy in general in the Beninese territory.

Since 2017, more than 120 countries around the world have adopted the biometric passport. Roméo Kintohoundji, president of the Beninese association for the promotion of digital technology is delighted to be in possession of a biometric passport. "I had the opportunity to use it more than once. It is even a pride to go to European countries and see that we are in possession of such a travel document. This proves the seriousness of what is done in Benin". "Today, we see that there has been a clear improvement compared to what was done. Much more information is now taken into account," he said.

Thanks to biometrics, crossing borders and at the airport is now accelerated. You enter or exit through gantries. The method used is recognition by comparison of the face and / or fingerprints. Fingerprint scanners and cameras installed at the airports capture a certain amount of information that makes it possible to identify more precisely all of the travelers entering or leaving the national territory, all of which leads to ensuring internal security and detecting identity theft.

However, the fact is many Beninese do not have birth certificates and therefore cannot have proof of digital identity. To cope with this insufficiency, the government authorized the reconstitution of birth certificates whose strains are destroyed, altered or have disappeared. It is for this purpose that a 2018 law authorizing registration as an exception to the civil status in Benin was promulgated. Under that law, nearly two and a half million documents will be distributed throughout the country.

Due to the rapid return on investment, Joseph Atik, president of Id4 Africa, believes that African countries do not need significant financial aid to set up biometric identification systems. For now, contracts related to digital market in Africa are awarded to multinational enterprises since there is not yet any local competencies. An innovative approach to security integrating technological solutions and processes adopted to national challenges can allow citizens to enjoy the benefits of their digital identity!

With The University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and The Africa-China Reporting Project:  ‘’Workshop on digital identity, data and technology in Africa’’.