National ID Research Articles

DeepGabor: A Learning-Based Framework to Augment IrisCodes Permanence

For over three decades, the Gabor-based <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IrisCode</i> approach has been acknowledged as the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">gold standard</i> for iris recognition, mainly due to the high entropy and binary nature of its signatures. This method is highly effective in large scale environments (e.g., national ID applications), where millions of comparisons per second are required. However, it is known that non-linear deformations in the iris texture, with fibers vanishing/appearing in response to pupil dilation/contraction, often flip the signature coefficients, being the main cause for the increase of false rejections. This paper addresses this problem, describing a customised Deep Learning (DL) framework that: 1) virtually emulates the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IrisCode</i> feature encoding phase; while also 2) detects the deformations in the iris texture that may lead to bit flipping, and autonomously adapts the filter configurations for such cases. The proposed DL architecture seamlessly integrates the Gabor kernels that extract the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IrisCode</i> and a multi-scale texture analyzer, from where the biometric signatures yield. In this sense, it can be seen as an <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">adaptive encoder</i> that is fully compatible to the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IrisCode</i> approach, while increasing the permanence of the signatures. The experiments were conducted in two well known datasets (CASIA-Iris-Lamp and CASIA-Iris-Thousand) and showed a notorious decrease of the mean/standard deviation values of the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">genuines</i> distribution, at expenses of only a marginal deterioration in the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">impostors</i> scores. The resulting decision environments consistently reduce the levels of false rejections with respect to the baseline for most operating levels (e.g., over 50% at 1 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">e</i> <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> FAR values). The source code of the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DeepGabor</i> encoder is available at: https://github.com/hugomcp/DeepGabor.

Mistrust of government within authoritarian states hindering user acceptance and adoption of digital IDs in Africa: The Nigerian context

Abstract Nigeria commenced its national foundational digital identity project in 2007 and had enrolled 60 million people by July 2021. The project, led by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), seeks to unify the country’s public and private functional identity databases, and aims to improve government services and national security. Although the enrolment process had encountered initial challenges such as the absence of enrolment centers in some communities across the country, enrolment for the biometric ID had proceeded without any significant public objection to its objectives. Following the EndSARS protests of October 2020, where youths protesting police violence and perceived poor governance were shot at by government security forces and protesters placed under surveillance, the government announced an updated national identity policy mandating citizens link their National Identity Number (NIN) with their SIM card information. For the first time, significant pockets of resistance arose against the national ID project by sections of the public who perceived the EndSARS violence as signaling a change in government behavior, and the updated ID policy as a mechanism for empowering government surveillance and authoritarianism. The resistance to the ID project marked a shift in public perception which threatens its future. This paper argues that mistrust in government data collection projects grows when data collection is perceived to be increasing government power to the detriment of human rights and freedom. It also puts forward a proposal on how to restore trust within the low-trust environment in Nigeria including the passage of a data protection law and amendments to the NIMC Act and Policies/Regulations, establishing Federated identity providers which give choices to end-users, and delinking the NIN from functional identity databases.

Medical data integration using HL7 standards for patient's early identification.

Integration between information systems is critical, especially in the healthcare domain, since interoperability requirements are related to patients’ data confidentiality, safety, and satisfaction. The goal of this study is to propose a solution based on the integration between queue management solution (QMS) and the electronic medical records (EMR), using Health Level Seven (HL7) protocols and Extensible Markup Language (XML). The proposed solution facilitates the patient’s self-check-in within a healthcare organization in UAE. The solution aims to help in minimizing the waiting times within the outpatient department through early identification of patients who hold the Emirates national ID cards, i.e., whether an Emirati or expatriates. The integration components, solution design, and the custom-designed XML and HL7 messages were clarified in this paper. In addition, the study includes a simulation experiment through control and intervention weeks with 517 valid appointments. The experiment goal was to evaluate the patient’s total journey and each related clinical stage by comparing the “routine-based identification” with the “patient’s self-check-in” processes in case of booked appointments. As a key finding, the proposed solution is efficient and could reduce the “patient’s journey time” by more than 14 minutes and “time to identify” patients by 10 minutes. There was also a significant drop in the waiting time to triage and the time to finish the triage process. In conclusion, the proposed solution is considered innovative and can provide a positive added value for the patient’s whole journey.

Thai teens’ privacy-related practices on Facebook

ABSTRACT Adolescents of today are at risk of online disclosure due to sharing personal information online without privacy settings. Facebook has the most users on social network site. This study aimed to 1)investigate the type of personal information that adolescents frequently display online 2)identify how adolescents manage their privacy settings on Facebook and 3)examine parents’ intervention on adolescents’ online lives. A self-administered questionnaire was used to survey participants aged 13to18 years old from 6 high schools across Thailand. The study recruited 1,242 adolescents (mean15.7 years,SD = 1.6). Most of adolescents allowed everyone to access their profiles. They shared information including real name (78.7%), phone number (22.7%), birthdate (82.5%), city of residence (62.2%), photo (64.5%), national ID number (2.3%), and credit card number (1%). The older group had more reputation management than the younger group. Parental control and guidance were significantly found in the older group than in the younger group. Different from studies in western countries, most Thai adolescents display their personal information on Facebook. Most adolescents reported that their parents have discussed online privacy and safety with them. However, they still choose to disclose a lot of information. Appropriate parental guidance and control might improve Thai adolescents’ privacy practices.

POLITICS OF RECOGNITION: A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORANG LOM AND STATE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS SERVICES

Adherents of ancestral religions stand in two entities as indigenous peoples and as citizens after the Constitutional Court Decision Number 96 of 2016 provided hope for believers as citizens to express their communal identity. This research aims to find out the form of relationship between Orang Lom and the state to civil rights services and to see the efforts made by Orang Lom to gain recognition from the state so that they have access to civil services. The approach in this study put forward Axel Honneth's political theory of recognition by dissecting it through the elements of subjectivity, objectivity, and solidarity that developed in the practice of civil rights services for the Mapur Lom Tribe. This study utilized a descriptive qualitative method with a case-study approach in the Mapur Indigenous Community of Orang Lom, Belinyu District, Bangka Belitung. The data collection technique was conducted through observation, in-depth interviews, and literature studies. Moreover, data analysis applied various sources, both from key informants and secondary data. The data analysis was performed by using an interactive model in the form of data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion. The results showed that the relationship between Orang Lom and the state seemed more administrative in nature on the basis of the prevailing laws and regulations regarding civil service and population administration. At this time, Orang Lom can put their belief in God Almighty in the column of National ID Card, but traditional marriage has not been recognized so that it has an impact on children's birth certificates and education services. In terms of the funeral of the adherents of folk religions, they do not receive any rejection from the community while for the organization's administration, the existence of the Mapur Customary Institution of Orang Lom receives recognition from Majelis Luhur Kepercayaan Indonesia.

Experiences With Internet Triaging of 9498 Outpatients Daily at the Largest Public Hospital in Taiwan During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Observational Study.

BackgroundDuring pandemics, acquiring outpatients’ travel, occupation, contact, and cluster histories is one of the most important measures in assessing the disease risk among incoming patients. Previous means of acquiring this information in the examination room have been insufficient in preventing disease spread.ObjectiveThis study aimed to demonstrate the deployment of an automatic system to triage outpatients over the internet.MethodsAn automatic system was incorporated in the existing web-based appointment system of the hospital and deployed along with its on-site counterpart. Automatic queries to the virtual private network travel and contact history database with each patient’s national ID number were made for each attempt to acquire the patient’s travel and contact histories. Patients with relevant histories were denied registration or entry. Text messages were sent to patients without a relevant history for an expedited route of entry if applicable.ResultsA total of 127,857 visits were recorded. Among all visits, 91,195 were registered on the internet. In total, 71,816 of them generated text messages for an expedited route of entry. Furthermore, 65 patients had relevant histories, as revealed by the virtual private network database, and were denied registration or entry.ConclusionsAn automatic triage system to acquire outpatients’ relevant travel and contact histories was deployed rapidly in one of the largest academic medical centers in Taiwan. The updated system successfully denied patients with relevant travel or contact histories entry to the hospital, thus preventing long lines outside the hospital. Further efforts could be made to integrate the system with the electronic medical record system.

Updating an empirical investigating risk perceptions associated with national ID cards in the wake of the global Covid-19 pandemic

National ID cards have been debated for some time, especially with the recent Covid-19 global pandemic and increases in technological capabilities, coupled with the need for higher national security. This paper is an empirical extension of Smith’s work but in light of the current economic and political turmoil. These differences were inspected from a gender perspective, but the distrust was generally universal. As the beneficial reasons why National ID cards should be implemented (e.g., enhanced security, convenience, and enhancing CRM concepts), still many professionals exhibit numerous fears and are concerned with the risks involved.

The role of digitalization in managing corona virus (covid19) crisis – empirical study on Egyptian health sector

The start of scientific revolution and modern technique represent decisive factor in the movement and condition of business system in the world including the energies achieved by the provision of productivity and creativity of acceleration the development of goods and services .there is no doubt that the scientific revolution and modern technology have been an important factor in facilitating globalization . The digitalization represent new generation of technology and one main result of technological revolution and one of the main idea to face crisis and the health sector is apart of using digitalization . Egypt faces now a day like all of the world covid 19 which reflect the ability of nations to face such crisis . Egypt has a good ministry of health managed by doctor hala Zayed which face covid 19 with ambitious and success . now as a result to the efforts in faces covid 19 the cases decreased to lowest degree as result to caution procedures taken by people at Egypt. Digitalization share in protecting against the virus as the ministry faces the virus and announce the news for caution procedure through television and other devices . one of the main use of digitalization is the website that specified for recording for antivirus . every one who want to take the vaccine register in the website with the national Id and wait for his registration result . Egypt make many initiatives that share in the covid 19 curing . The political leadership was keen to work in two important directions to change the health reality of the Egyptians, the first is to rehabilitate and develop the health infrastructure to keep pace with the development in the performance of the health service through the application of the new comprehensive health insurance system, and the second direction is to launch a package of health reforms to speed up service provision For the citizen and quickly in light of the application of quality standards followed globally in order to achieve patient satisfaction with the service. The first seed of health reform for all Egyptians is the launch by the political leadership of the comprehensive health insurance project for all Egyptians, which began in Port Said Governorate, which has benefited nearly one million citizens in the governorate in light of obtaining the service in return for paying contributions and contributions, provided that the experience is spread throughout the governorates of the Republic gradually and in further development. Accelerating the provision of service to Egyptians President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi directed the start of registering citizens to benefit from the service in 5 other governorates, in which nearly 5 million citizens will benefit from the service. The exceptional circumstances that the country is experiencing due to the Corona crisis, which the President directed to allocate 100 billion pounds to confront Covid 19.

Privacy and Data Protection Practices of Digital Lending Apps in Kenya

The Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) has been studying the impact of digital identities on society. This has included policy research on the legal and technical aspects of the national digital ID system Huduma Namba under which the Government is integrating all its identification documents. This research shows that the national digital identity system also integrates with privately issued digital identities such as mobile phone numbers and social media accounts. We anticipate that as national digital ID uses increase, so will the linkage with private systems. This is already evident from e-government services, where payments for Government services, such as passport applications, drivers’ licences, national health insurance and hospital bills in public hospitals are made using mobile money platforms. We also appreciate that private digital ID is more developed and has more uses than national digital ID. For example, a 2019 survey, undertaken by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), estimates that access to financial products had risen from 26.7% in 2006 to 89% of the population in 2019. This is attributed partly to the availability of digital products such as “mobile banking, agency banking, digital finance and mobile apps”. These products make use of personal data, which broadly falls under digital identities. This study seeks to understand the privacy implications of digital ID by looking at digital lending apps.

Blockchain Covid 19 Tracker for Educational Institutions

The current COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives in unimaginable ways. It has brought forth the need to know our location, the people we’ve been in contact with, and other details like our body temperature and more to contain the spread of this virus. This information is even more vital when it comes to students, as their return to school increases their exposure level. There are quite a few existing systems that must be integrated to solve this problem. Currently, we have in use thermal sensors to record people’s temperatures by scanning, we have card readers in buses to confirm the student’s presence, and we have online portals where teachers can log a student’s attendance for each class. Using blockchain, we can incorporate these systems to create an effective, transparent COVID-19 tracker. In this paper, we discuss a new blockchain-based tracking system that ensures transparency between the student, school and government to prevent the spread of the virus and help in contact tracing. We facilitate the integration of the above-mentioned systems using blockchain and school national ID cards.

Treatment Outcomes 24 Months after Initiating Short Bedaquiline- or Injectable-Containing Rifampicin-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment Regimens: A Retrospective Cohort Study in South Africa

Background: We compared outcomes up to 24 months after treatment initiation for rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (RR-TB) patients in South Africa treated with a short, all-oral bedaquiline-containing regimen (bedaquiline group), or a short, injectable-containing regimen (injectable group). Methods: RR-TB patients eligible for a short regimen starting treatment between 1 January and 31 December 2017 with a bedaquiline-containing or WHO recommended injectable-containing treatment regimen of 9 to 12 months, registered with their national ID in the drug-resistant TB database and with known age, sex, and HIV status were eligible for study inclusion. To compare regimens, we exactly matched patients on HIV-infection, previous TB treatment history, baseline acid-fast bacilli smear and culture result, and propensity score matched patients on age, sex, and isoniazid susceptibility status, using logistic regression with generalized linear mixed models to estimate adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). Results: Overall, 1,387 of the 10,152 RR-TB patients treated during 2017 met inclusion criteria, of whom 688 received the bedaquiline-containing regimen and 699 patients received the injectable-containing regimen. Four patients (0.6%) had treatment failure and/or recurrence, 44 (6.4%) were lost to follow-up, and 162 (23.5%) died in the bedaquiline group, compared to 17 (2.4%), 87 (12.4%), and 199 (28.5%), respectively, in the injectable group. Patients in the bedaquiline group had 1.8 (95%CI 1.4 to 2.4) times higher odds of treatment success at 24 months and 0.6 (0.4 to 0.8) times lower odds of loss to follow-up. This was consistent in stratified analyses on HIV-status, AFB smear positivity, and previous treatment history. The bedaquiline group had lower odds of mortality during treatment (0.5, 95%CI 0.4 to 0.7), but not post treatment (1.1, 95%CI 0.7 to 1.7). Conclusion: Patients in the bedaquiline group experienced significantly higher rates of treatment success at 24 months compared to the injectable group. The analysis supports the use of short bedaquiline-containing regimens in eligible patients. Funding: WHO Global TB Programme. Declaration of Interest: We declare no competing interests. Ethical Approval: This analysis was approved by Human Research Ethics Committee, Medical of University of Witwatersrand (#M150340, March 2015).

Legally Belonging in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Status of Legal Identity (Conference (Re)Imagining Belonging in Latin America and Beyond)

The days that one could belong in their country without having a legal identity to actually be(long) legally in that country seem well behind us, except for minorities that have no other place to go than, perhaps, a refugee camp, or underground. “Leaving no one behind” — the motto of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda — is a hollow phrase until each and everyone one of us has a legal identity and basic rights for our interaction with governments. The Latin American and Caribbean region has arguably done the most to reach a state in which the proportion of those excluded from legal identity is down to a level very close to that in high-income countries, and lower than in any other part of the world. Birth registration coverage of children 0–4 years old is 96% (and higher still for children and youth 5–18 years old). ID-coverage is 95%. But this paper also shows that whether it is the World Bank (ID4D), the United Nations Statistics Division or UNICEF, their statistics on civil registration and national ID coverage leave much to be desired in terms of timeliness, coverage, veracity and compliance with adequate statistical practice. For a randomly chosen sample of seven countries in the LAC region we found that the World Bank’s “2018” dataset was in error to the extent that the actual number of “unidentified” people in those seven countries, by 2016, is just 15% of the World Bank number. All three actors release data that are, disappointingly, representative of the situation of 5 to 7 years ago. The World Bank, UNSD and UNICEF also treat high-income countries as VIP-countries that, “of course”, do not have people without a legal identity. Hence those countries are let off the hook and are not required to establish and report the problem of their “unidentified” people. “One UN” is not what we see either. That also applies to the tussle within the UN (including the World Bank Group) over what role “digital ID” systems could play for legal identity, if at all. The LAC region shows (to the extent available statistics allow) that, when it comes to legal identity, ID coverage tends to be, and become, more exclusionary than civil (=birth) registration coverage. The region also shows that universal coverage can be achieved, not by “leapfrogging” to eliminate “the identity gap” or “quack-fixes”, but by serious study and judicious policy and implementation. Much of this paper zooms in on the quantitative, empirical data on the regional coverage of civil registration and national ID-systems. The region deserves to be commended for the sophisticated-but-pragmatic, organization-focused research, and implementation follow-through largely with local resources. Reaching legal identity for all by 2030 in the LAC region is feasible.

Secure I-voting system using QR code and biometric authentication

ABSTRACT The Estonian i–voting system uses the PIN of the national ID card for the authentication of the voter. The vote modification malware, re-voting malware, and self-voting malware can easily record the PIN and change the vote or secretly cast a vote. The bad verification attack can easily change the encrypted ballot sent to the verification application because the public key of the server encrypts it. This study presents a secure internet voting and verification protocol that conquers the malware in the internet voting system. The proposed method uses the QR code and fingerprint biometric authentication provided by the Aadhaar card in India. The use of a parameter q modifies the voting and verification protocol. Only the parameter q display on the screen for verification, thereby, conserves the vote’s secrecy. The parameter q provides a second level of authentication in the voting protocol. The fingerprint biometric authentication exhibits better security against the vote modification malware, re-voting malware, and self-voting malware. The parameter q is digitally signed using the server’s private key before it is sent to the verification application to defend against the bad verification attack.

Sub-surface characterisation of latest-generation identification documents using optical coherence tomography

The identification of individuals, particularly at international border crossings, coupled with the evolving sophistication of identity documents are issues that authorities must contend with. Particularly, the ability to distinguish legitimate from counterfeit documents, with high throughput, sensitivity, and selectivity is an ever-evolving challenge.Over the last decade, an increasing number of security features have been introduced by authorities in identification documents. The latest generation of travel documents (such as passports and national ID cards) forego paper substrates for several layers of polycarbonate, allowing security features to be embedded within the documents. These security features may contain information at either the superficial and sub-surface levels, thus increasing the document’s resilience to counterfeiting.As the documents become harder to forge, so does the sophistication of forgery detection. There appears to be an unmet and evolving need to identify such sophisticated forgeries, in a non-destructive, high throughput manner.In this publication, we report on the application of optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging on assessing security features in specimen passports and national ID cards. OCT allows sub-surface imaging of translucent structures, non-destructively enabling quantitative visualisation of embedded security features.

Who Watches the Watchmen? A Review of Subjective Approaches for Sybil-Resistance in Proof of Personhood Protocols

Most self-sovereign identity systems consist of strictly objective claims, cryptographically signed by trusted third party attestors. Lacking protocols in place to account for subjectivity, these systems do not form new sources of legitimacy that can address the central question concerning identity authentication: Who verifies the verifier?. Instead, the legitimacy of claims is derived from traditional centralized institutions such as national ID issuers and KYC providers. This architecture has been employed, in part, to safeguard protocols from a vulnerability previously thought to be impossible to address in peer-to-peer systems: the Sybil attack, which refers to the abuse of an online system by creating many illegitimate virtual personas. Inspired by the progress in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, there has recently been a surge in networked protocols that make use of subjective inputs such as voting, vouching, and interpreting, to arrive at a decentralized and sybil-resistant consensus for identity. In doing so, these projects illustrate that the best technologies do not abstract away subjectivity but instead embrace it as a necessity, and strength. In this review, we will outline the approaches of these new and natively digital sources of authentication - their attributes, methodologies strengths, and weaknesses - and sketch out possible directions for future developments.

Malaria Transmission and Spillover across the Peru-Ecuador Border: A Spatiotemporal Analysis.

Border regions have been implicated as important hot spots of malaria transmission, particularly in Latin America, where free movement rights mean that residents can cross borders using just a national ID. Additionally, rural livelihoods largely depend on short-term migrants traveling across borders via the Amazon’s river networks to work in extractive industries, such as logging. As a result, there is likely considerable spillover across country borders, particularly along the border between Peru and Ecuador. This border region exhibits a steep gradient of transmission intensity, with Peru having a much higher incidence of malaria than Ecuador. In this paper, we integrate 13 years of weekly malaria surveillance data collected at the district level in Peru and the canton level in Ecuador, and leverage hierarchical Bayesian spatiotemporal regression models to identify the degree to which malaria transmission in Ecuador is influenced by transmission in Peru. We find that increased case incidence in Peruvian districts that border the Ecuadorian Amazon is associated with increased incidence in Ecuador. Our results highlight the importance of coordinated malaria control across borders.

Hybrid Two-Stage Architecture for Tampering Detection of Chipless ID Cards

Identity verification systems are widely used in daily life. Most of these systems rely on official documents containing identifying information about a person (i.e., passports, ID cards, driving licenses, amongst others). In this kind of approach, the identifiable data is contained inside the embedded chip in the ID card, and can be read remotely by an NFC-enabled mobile device and then matched with a frontal face photograph (selfie) of the person in question. Unfortunately, this method is limited in South-American countries, since only a few of them provide national ID cards that include embedded chips with the owner’s identifiable information. For instance, in countries such as Brazil—with a population of over 210 million people—the National ID card does not contain an embedded chip. This work explores a two-stage method, using deep learning techniques, to determine whether an ID card image provided remotely by the user is real, or tampered in the digital (composite) or non-digital domain (high-quality printed or digitally displayed on a screen). Furthermore, RGB images, frequency domain representation, noise features, and error level analysis are tested as different inputs to the two-stage classifier. The proposed BasicNet with Discrete Fourier Transform achieves the highest classification rates of 0.975 for real ID card images, and a mean of 0.968 for fake ID card images.

Determinants of Scale-up From a Small Pilot to a National Electronic Immunization Registry in Vietnam: Qualitative Evaluation.

BackgroundDigital health innovations can improve health system performance, yet previous experience has shown that many innovations do not advance beyond the pilot stage to achieve scale. Vietnam’s National Immunization Information System (NIIS) began as a series of digital health pilots, first initiated in 2010, and was officially launched nationwide in 2017. The NIIS is one of the few examples of an electronic immunization registry (EIR) at national scale in low- and middle-income countries.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to understand the determinants of scale-up of the national EIR in Vietnam.MethodsThis qualitative study explored the facilitators and barriers to national scale-up of the EIR in Vietnam. Qualitative data were collected from October to December 2019 through in-depth key informant interviews and desk review. The mHealth Assessment and Planning for Scale (MAPS) Toolkit guided the development of the study design, interview guides, and analytic framework. MAPS defines the key determinants of success, or the “axes of scale,” to be groundwork, partnerships, financial health, technology and architecture, operations, and monitoring and evaluation.ResultsThe partnership and operations axes were critical to the successful scale-up of the EIR in Vietnam, while the groundwork and monitoring and the evaluation axes were considered to be strong contributors in the success of all the other axes. The partnership model leveraged complementary strengths of the technical working group partners: the Ministry of Health General Department of Preventive Medicine, the National Expanded Program on Immunization, Viettel (the mobile network operator), and PATH. The operational approach to introducing the NIIS with lean, iterative, and integrated training and supervision was also a key facilitator to successful scale-up. The financial health, technology and architecture, and operations axes were identified as barriers to successful deployment and scale-up. Key barriers to scale-up included insufficient estimates of operational costs, unanticipated volume of data storage and transmission, lack of a national ID to support interoperability, and operational challenges among end users. Overall, the multiple phases of EIR deployment and scale-up from 2010 to 2017 allowed for continuous learning and improvement that strengthened all the axes and contributed to successful scale-up.ConclusionsThe results highlight the importance of the measured, iterative approach that was taken to gradually expand a series of small pilots to nationwide scale. The findings from this study can be used to inform other countries considering, introducing, or in the process of scaling an EIR or other digital health innovations.

Opportunities for the Application of City Government Policies in Implementing Motor Vehicle and Surface Water Taxes in Indonesia

Transparency in public policy is one pillar of a state democracy. This is important because the community as the implementer of the policy can monitor government performance. Motor vehicle and surface water taxes are the largest revenue sector in the regional budget. Therefore, this study aims to analyze qualitatively about the application of city government policies in implementing motor vehicle and surface water taxes in Indonesia. This study was conducted with an explanatory sequential mixed method design which consisted of two stages, quantitative data collection and qualitative data collection to help decipher quantitative data. This study was conducted in West Java province with 18 regencies and 9 municipalities and the Regional Revenue Agency of West Java which has 34 One-stop Administration Services Offices of Regional Tax Management Center spread in 5 working areas. The research problems include (1) How is the implementation of motor vehicle and surface water tax policies in West Java regencies/Cities? and (2) What is the ideal policy implementation model design for Regencies/Cities in West Java? The results show that the regency/city government has implemented the excavation of motor vehicle and surface water tax potentials through intensification and extensification through regional apparatuses and the policy implementation model design for regencies/cities is the application model of national identity number single ID.

Blockchain Based Security Solution for Medical Data

Existing health organizations maintain their patients and medical data using centralised management approach. This system is more vulnerable to data breaches which leads to security threats and patients don’t have control over their data. According to German cybersecurity company Greenbone Networks, the patient records, 121 millions of medical images and scans from India has been leaked which includes details such as the name of the patient, their date of birth, the national ID, name of the medical institution, their medical history, physician names and other details. According to poneman cost of data breach study, the cost of the data breach for healthcare organizations approximated to be $380 per record. According to 2016 Breach Barometer Report, 27,314,647 patient records were affected. The patient don’t have control over their data and data can be misused. Hyperledger fabric framework based Blockchain technology is most desirable solution to prevent data manipulation and data theft .It also facilitates patient to have control over their data. Hyperledger fabric is a permissioned distributed ledger framework and provide high degrees of confidentiality, flexibility, and scalability.