Relevance: Mains: G.S paper III: Science and tech
India has become the first country in the world to issue Biometric Seafarer Identity Document (BSID), capturing the facial bio-metric data of seafarers.
Crucial highlights
- The project was launched by Union Minister of Shipping in New Delhi. He also handed over the new BSID cards to five Indian seafarers. All the existing seafarers will be given BSID within the next 2 years.
- The new card is in confirmation of the Convention No. 185 of the International Labour Organisation on BSID. India ratified the Convention in October 2015.
- In India the BSID project has been taken up by Ministry of Shipping in collaboration with Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Mumbai.
- The Government notified the Merchant Shipping (Seafarers Bio-metric Identification Document) Rules in
- The new document will give a foolproof identification to Indian seafarers which will facilitate their movement, provide ease of getting jobs and help in identifying them from any location in the world, while protecting their dignity and privacy.
- The new facial biometric technology is a marked improvement over the two finger or iris based bio-metric data, with modern security features. It will have a biometric chip embedded in it. The card has two optical security features- Micro prints/micro texts and Unique Guilloche pattern.