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Government Security, Policy

Bill seeks to get biometric data of all Filipino voters

By Pia Rufino | 30 May 2011

The Philippine government is seeking to institutionalize the use of biometrics in voter registration to clean the voter record in preparation for the midterm elections in 2013.

House Bill 3469 which requires all voters to have their biometrics data — photographs, fingerprints and signature — taken by an election officer and prohibits those without biometric data from voting has now hurdled Third Reading at the House of Representatives.

According to the author of the bill, 2nd district Tarlac Representative Susan Yap, the move will “cure the perennial problem of multiple registrants and flying voters” since every registrant is assigned a unique key of identification.

There were 704,542 voters with double or multiple registrations in May 2010 general elections, according to a data from the Commission on Elections (Comelec). After the mandatory electronic registration of voters, the Comelec will come up with a single, official, and centralized national voter registration list or database. The data can be shared with other agencies.

Comelec Spokesperson and Director James Jimenez said in a statement the mandatory capture of biometrics information for all registered voters is a cornerstone of the Comelec campaign to clean up the list of voters. Out of the estimated 48 million registered voters in the country, about 24 million have not yet undergone the biometrics process, said Yap.

“They will have to register anew or validate their registration. They will be required to appear before the election officer of their place of registration to verify their record and undergo the biometrics process,” she said.

The bill also seeks the use of biometrics technology in the actual voting process.

Under the proposed law, a system shall be established wherein electronic data generated by biometric registration shall be available to election officers at the precinct level for voter identification.

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