The new director of the Agency for Identification Documents, Records and Data Exchange of Bosnia and Herzegovina (IDDEEA) since a few days ago is Almir Badnjević. Badnjević spoke about what it’s like to take responsibility for one of the most important institutions, as well as planned projects, in the BHT1 show.
He reminded that it is about the Agency that deals with identification documents, all records that exist, and data exchange, which implies a complete infrastructure so that these data could go between the IDDEEA database and the competent authorities that access that database.
“In short, we are a place where data on all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina is located, which is accessed by all competent authorities of BiH”, said Badnjević.
He emphasized that IDDEEA is not the owner of the data, but, in practice, keeps the database in which the data is entered, and the owners are the competent authorities.
“If, say, you go to the Ministry of Interior and want to take out your passport, they enter the data you provide into our database. However, they are also the owners,” said Badnjević.
He announced that the goal of IDDEEA in the coming period is to enable as many e-services as possible.
“The agency, in its team, we have already started working on it, will develop applications so that citizens and competent authorities can use a lot of services from that data. All we can do is develop those services and provide, that is, deliver those links and applications to the competent authorities and we say – you have that option, do you want to use it? If you want, make a decision with which you will use it,” said Badnjević.
As an example, he cited an application that, according to Badnjević, will be used a lot, namely identification based on a photo, which can help the police and other authorities involved in any kind of investigation a lot.
Badnjević referred to the recently held meeting with representatives of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“We had a meeting with the CEC where the Agency will provide automatic voter identification, which means that you will no longer have to look for yourself on the voter lists. The first way will be to put your fingerprint and identify yourself in the database of your fingerprints, that you are it’s you, that your picture comes out, that it is confirmed with your face and that we know without a problem that it is you who should vote, that you are in the right place, etc.,” said Badnjević.
According to him, it is a pilot project initiated by the Delegation of the European Union, in which the CEC of BiH and the IDDEEA are involved.
“IDDEEA will provide the infrastructure, and the complete project of potential automatic identification and later, probably, some kind of electronic voting, will be led, decided and managed by the Central Election Commission,” said Badnjević.
IDDEEA is currently working on an open data portal, he said.
“There, probably not all, but 45 different data that we currently have in the database will be offered to the citizens, so that they can see and check. I have to mention the following – in order for us to implement electronic voting and some other things, it is necessary to have an implemented the law on digital signature, i.e. on electronic signing. BiH does not have that at the moment. We are waiting for the decision of the Council of Ministers of BiH. It is a decision that has been pending in the Council of Ministers for some time, and which is necessary,” said Badnjević and added that, while that does not happen, the electronic certificate cannot be implemented in the ID card.
Badnjević announced that, in coordination with the Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH, he will soon send some kind of emergency and ask them to continue with the aforementioned decision.
IDDEEA, he points out, is absolutely ready for that.
