Govt gets biometric software to list Rohingyas

The government has acquired a software system to record biometric data of Rohingyas as part of efforts to document the refugees entering Bangladesh to escape genocide in Myanmar.

Bangladeshi firm Tiger IT handed over the software to the Department of Immigration and Passports yesterday evening. Since August 25, some three lakh Rohingyas have entered Bangladesh, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

The department's Director General Maj Gen Md Masud Rezwan said they along with Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and the Cox's Bazar district administration would collect the data at 12 registration points.

He said, as the government last week instructed the department to start biometric registration of the Rohingyas, they have asked BGB to provide personnel for data entry. The department will also try to incorporate data of those who entered years earlier, Rezwan added.

The registration process will begin ahead of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to Cox's Bazar tomorrow, said a senior official of the department requesting anonymity.

Apart from the fingerprint, several information of each refugee will be stored in a dedicated server including name, gender, age, photo, parents' name, birthplace, nationality, country and religion.

Each person will receive an ID card having a barcode containing all relevant information, said a senior executive of Tiger IT, which has developed the identification related software for other Southeast Asian countries.

In the absence of the ID, a scan of the person's fingerprint will also reveal all the data, he added.

Rezwan said there was no proper identification system earlier for which the authorities concerned found it difficult to track Rohingyas while some of the refugees collected forged Bangladeshi passports to migrate abroad.

“This time we are very careful and the high command asked us to find a solution to resolve future problems,” he said, adding that the database would also prove useful in distributing relief.