A few days ago, Mr. Almir Badnjević was appointed as the new director of the Agency for Identification Documents, Registers, and Data Exchange of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Badnjević spoke about what it’s like to be in charge of one of the most important institutions, as well as upcoming projects for the BHT1 Live.
He reminded that the Agency is dealing with identification documents, all civil registers, and data exchange, which requires a complex infrastructure to allow these data to flow between the IDDEEA database and the competent authorities that access that database.
“In summary, we are a repository for data on all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina that is accessible to all BiH competent authorities,” Badnjević explained.
He emphasized that IDDEEA is not the owner of the data, but rather manages the databases into which the data is input, with the owners being the competent authorities.
“If, for instance, you go to the MUP and want to take out your passport, they enter the data you provide into our database. However, they are the owners of those data,” Badnjević clarified.
He announced that the goal of IDDEEA in the upcoming period is to enable as many e-services as possible.
“In its team, the Agency will, and we have already started working on it, develop applications that allow citizens and competent authorities to access a variety of services based on the data. All we can do is design those services and provide or deliver those links and applications to the competent authorities and offer them the option to use them if they want. If you want to use it, create a legal framework to do so,” said Badnjević.
As an example, he mentioned an application that, according to Badnjević, will be used a lot. It is identification based on a photograph, which may be extremely helpful to the police and other authorities engaged in any form of investigation.
Badnjević referred to the recently held meeting with representatives of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CEC of BiH).
“We had a meeting with the Central Election Commission of BiH. The Agency will provide automatic voter identification, which eliminates the need to search voter lists for you any longer. The first method will be to enter your fingerprint and identify yourself in the fingerprint database. To confirm that it is you, your photograph will appear and match your face, and then we will be able to check without a doubt that it is you who should vote, that you are in the correct location, and so on,” 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, while the Central Election Commission will lead, manage, and decide on the entire project of potential automatic identification and, potentially, some form of electronic voting in the future.”, Badnjević explained.
Currently, IDDEEA is working on the Open Data Project.
“Thus, probably not all, but 45 different data sets that we currently have in the database will be made available to citizens for viewing and checking.” I must emphasize the following: in order for us to implement electronic voting and other things, we must have a digital signature law, i.e. electronic signing, in place. BiH does not currently have this. We are awaiting 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, adding that “the electronic certificate cannot be incorporated on the ID card until that happens.”
Badnjević stated that he will soon submit an emergency message, in collaboration with the Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH, requesting that the aforementioned decision be implemented.
He emphasizes that IDDEEA is well prepared for this.
Watch the full interview with Almir Badnjević here: https://bhrt.ba