At the Biometrics Institute member meeting in London last week 
(12 June 2015) Ghassan Matar, CEO of eGoVisa Group, outlined how the exchange of biometric data for visa applications can be made more secure and how Biometrics should be under the control of their respective owners.
eGoVisa has developed the eGoVisa Framework which is a system that allows Governments from across the globe, businesses and individuals to collaborate and exchange information in a standardised way while ensuring that sensitive and private data remains under the control of their respective owners.
Ghassan Matar said: “The Framework enables Governments to manage their visa information or consular services, individuals their biometric and important data and corporations their sensitive information. All this data, which is referred to as Form Fields are then made available on request to enable the completion of a given transaction such as a visa application or specific consular service. The same can be applied to any business to consumer transaction including insurance, health and banking. The system is the result of four years development work and a seven-figure investment.”
He added: “The first practical use of the Framework is for visa application processing and delivery. In this case the Ministry of Foreign Affairs use their portal to define their embassies, immigration rules and service delivery prices. Their embassies then use the embassy portal to localise the information and accept, adjudicate and process visa applications. The visa applicant uses the framework to pass on their biometrics and personal data. The embassy uses the eGoVisa portal to adjudicate the application and then return the visa to the user or deny a visa via the framework. The same technology can be used for any consular service including passport applications, birth certificates, marriage certificates, registrations and so forth.”
What makes the system more secure is that all data is simply shared through a highly secure link and not actually transferred ensuring that only authorised people have access to the data. Moreover, every request for data must be approved by the user; so when someone applies for a visa they are effectively granting permission to the embassy to access the data that the embassy has requested.
“We predict that the Framework can save Governments and their Foreign Ministries huge amounts of time, money and unnecessary paperwork. For the individual it makes the whole visa application process less stressful and frustrating.”
The eGoVisa Framework is a cloud-based system payable by subscription so does not require investment in additional IT infrastructure. For further information please visit www.egovisa.com or call +442079934312
For more information about the Biometrics Institute please visit http://www.biometricsinstitute.org/
Please note: Copies of the presentation are available on request from Integris Communications as below.
