C T Online Desk: The government is considering imposing fees for digital identity verification services in a bid to make the process self-sustaining.
The measure may increase the cost of government services that require identity verification, although specifics of how the fee will be imposed are yet to be decided.
Currently, Digicon Global Services Ltd provides identity verification services to government agencies free of cost. The company covers its expenses by charging private companies for the same services.
Digicon provides identity verification services through Real-time E-KYC and the identity management platform Porichoy, which is connected to the Election Commission’s national database. The Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) owns Porichoy, including an app developed under the Bangladesh National Digital Architecture (BNDA) framework in collaboration with the ICT Division and Election Commission.
Sources said they had been making some money from private companies through their identity verification services, but the amount was not sufficient to meet all their expenses. As a result, the government had been subsidizing the identity verification process.
Imposing an identity verification fee would not only help make the verification process self-sustaining, but also help generate revenue for the government, the sources added.
“During the two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the ICT Division alone took Tk15 crore worth of identity verification services from Digicon,” an official of the company said.
