The new Barbados Trident ID Card remains a secure and convenient form of identification for citizens to use.
This assurance comes from Minister of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology, Davidson Ishmael, as he responded to concerns expressed by president of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), Dr Ronnie Yearwood who suggested over the weekend that Barbadians should not collect their new IDs because of what he saw as serious security issues.
Speaking during Monday’s St Peter Speaks town hall meeting at the Alexandra School, Ishmael pushed back on the notion of “unsafe” cards and stressed that the new chip and pin security features associated with the new ID had been used successfully in other jurisdictions.
“What amazes me is that we have people out there fear mongering, and trying to wrestle our people into a state of standing still, when the rest of the world is moving forward, for something that is as basic and as fundamental to our society as your ID card.”
He added: “All of us in here go on Amazon, all of us in here go on Shein and all of these different companies overseas, and we put in all sort of information and we shop, and we do all of these things and we do not give too much thought to it because we appreciate that the people who operate these companies are going to do so in the most secure way. We should appreciate that our government is going to do what is in our best interest.”
Ishmael revealed that 177,000 citizens have registered for the new ID and over 110,000 of them have collected it. He stressed that the digital side of the ID, which has received some push back from some members of the public, has been misunderstood. That digital element is optional.
“If I am sitting at home in my bed in my boxer, and I want to be able to do business with the Government of Barbados, and I want to authenticate that I am Davidson Ishmael authorising this transaction, I should be able to do that in a 21st century world, in a 21st century Barbados.
“If you do not want to do that, that is totally fine. If you still want to go into the bank and stand up and present your physical ID, that is totally fine. We are not forcing anyone to go into the digital side of this at all,” he told the meeting.
He also made it clear that no banking information is supported on the ID, despite some public concerns.
“Your National ID that is being issued to you, when you go and register, no one is asking you for a bank account, so how is it going to magically get connected to a bank account at some point in time.
“Anyone that wants to opt into any service later down the road that may have a feature that is tied to some financial institution or even a government service such as NIS, would opt into it. When you opt into it you will provide the relevant information at that point in time.”
Prime Minister Mia Mottley shared similar sentiments at the session, stating that though some Barbadians are citing the new ID and the publishing of the 2022 General Elections’ voters list as instances of privacy intrusions, nothing could be further from the truth. She reminded the audience that the publication of the voters’ list with associated details has been required by the 1990 legislation.
“I reject strongly the notion that is going around now, that for the sake of opposition politics, we have all of these allegations being made on the internet. The AG (Attorney General) just showed me the Representation of the People Act – this is decades old – and the notion that because a list was published, that there is a problem with people’s data is nonsense.”
She added: “That particular piece of legislation is 1990, passed by a Democratic Labour Party government, that required publications of registers, and you can’t quarrel with them for it because everybody must know who is on the voters list. We have all kinds of commentary that is taking place that really causes me to wonder if people are pausing and thinking before speaking.”