Key Role of the Congolese National Register

Identification and verification is more than a convenience; it is a fundamental right of citizens around the globe. It is a necessity to provide people access to electoral participation, social benefits, health care, financial services, and educational prospects. It opens new channels of communication on a citizen to business-, business to business-, citizen to government- and government to government-level. The exchange of information and the execution of business, financial and legal transactions depend on integrated identification and verification solutions. People profit directly und instantly from better services and governments as well as the business sectors are able to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. The importance of robust identification systems and their significance to development cannot be overestimated.

Laying the Groundwork for the National Register

During the past five years, the Mühlbauer Group has been working closely with the Republic of the Congo to establish a comprehensive infrastructure program for the providing of a national census, the installation of a national register and the issuance of ID and travel documents with mutable use applications.

The basis of the project was the implementation of a complete infrastructure for decentralized enrollment of the demographic and biometric data, the infrastructure network with data storage and management systems, as well as the centralized database. The chosen partner of the Republic of the Congo to carry out this demanding project was the Mühlbauer Group. Colonel Henri Jacques Kienaka, at that time the Director of Civil Identification at the Ministry of Security and Public Order and in charge of the awarding of the project, explains the decision for this cooperation: “Mühlbauer was chosen due to the fact that they are the sole company in the world who can deliver such a solution out of one hand. No third party interfaces were necessary and the complete project was implemented in a very smooth way.”

Founded in 1981 the Mühlbauer Group has ever since grown to a leading global player of the security sector. Mühlbauer specializes in innovative end-to-end solutions focusing on the production, personalization and issuance of secure ID cards and ePassports as well as access and border control systems, vision inspection technologies and semiconductor and RFID applications. The group supports governments and public authorities worldwide and is currently involved in more than 300 ID projects. 

Serving as a model example for the setup of a complex system this project moreover included the providing of an extensive range of fraud resistant documents. The Mühlbauer document specialists developed the national ID card, the consular card and the residence card and provided high-secure ePassports. Next to the ordinary passport this comprises diplomatic, service, refugee and substitute passports. By making use of the newly built infrastructure and based on the centralized register, the issuance of new documents can be performed effortlessly.

National Census Based on Existing Registers

Since 1958 the United Nations have been recommending national censuses in addition to the continuous registration of life events, such as birth, death, marriage or divorce. These snapshots of the current situation, in particular with regard to population and housing, enable the collection of statistical data which lay the groundwork for any political, economical or social decision-making, and for the facilitation of providing any governmental and administrative services.

Due to the new infrastructure and in order to perform a national census, the government of the Republic of the Congo is able to resort to the existing databases of the citizen’s data, which were established for the issuance of ID and travel documents. Any information captured within the census is merged with the existing database to form one up-to-date national register of the whole population. Thus a nationwide consistent data structure is guaranteed, which serves as the basis for any further applications and services, provided by governmental authorities, who have access to the common register. This applies in particular to the generating of electoral registers, which covers all eligible voters, and, in a second step, the issuance of voter’s cards.

The aim, moreover, is to establish a comprehensive national register, which can be kept up-to-date by installing decentralized databases in each district containing the respective citizens’ information gained during the census. A regular data transfer to the central national register ensures that any changes in the local population’s data, such as life events like births and deaths are continuously transmitted.

“We are very thankful to Mühlbauer which met all of our high expectations in terms of quality and security of the complete National ID Card Project”, states Colonel Kienaka. “Mühlbauer experts helped us in adjusting the different elements until a superior level was reached. Moreover Mühlbauer has demonstrated expertise in all relevant and also other fields and has been very forthcoming in whatever issues we have faced in the course of the project.”

Press Contact:

Lara Schmaus

Phone: +49 9461 952 – 1579

Email: Lara.Schmaus@muehlbauer.de