Unique Digital Identity Project in progress - Parliament Committee

State Minister of Technology Kanaka Herath stated that the Indo-Sri Lanka Joint Project for the Sri Lanka Unique Digital Identity Project (SL-UDI) is underway and that biographic and biometric information, facial, iris and fingerprint will be collected and entered into a central system for the purpose of issuing identification cards.

State Minister Herath stated the above at the first meeting of the Ministerial Consultative Committee on Technology of the fourth session of the ninth Parliament held recently, Parliament's Communications Department stated. 

Furthermore, digitalizing information under one identification number in all documents starting from the birth certificate was discussed at length. 

The officials present stated that though the proposal to do so has already been adopted and is in progress, the mechanism of execution has caused it to be frozen. The Committee suggested that rather than trying to digitize past documents which cause delays and backlogs, to skip the past generations and begin fresh from one batch which will allow it to move forward.

Members of Parliament Imran Maharoof, Samanpriya Herath, Weerasumana Weerasinghe, Ashoka Priyantha, Gunathilaka Rajapaksha were present at the Committee meeting.