International. HID Global and DGM teamed up to help improve the lives of 6.5 million of Angola's more than 24 million citizens. The companies joined forces to achieve a basic identity accreditation infrastructure that has allowed the country to fully restore social services and other citizen programs in the last decade, after nearly 25 years of civil war.
GSN's awards program recognizes the most important achievements made by technology companies, government agencies, scientists and executives, transportation and law enforcement organizations, as well as many other sectors, whose joint efforts are aimed at ensuring the safety of citizens in land, sea and border areas.
"We are honored to receive this award and share it with DGM, our longtime partner," said Rob Haslam, Vice President of Government Identification Solutions at HID Global. "We are also impressed by Angola's achievements with this solution. They have used it to implement a constant process of rebuilding the fabric of their economy and at the same time provide the legal pillars of identification that ensure that citizens can receive the services they need to radically improve their daily lives."
HID Global and DGM worked hand in hand with the Ministry of Justice of the Angolan government to implement a direct process, thanks to which at this moment each citizen is securely issued an identification in less than an hour, either in fixed centers or through mobile units in remote areas.
Each national identification document, which stores both personal and biometric identification, uses HID Global's OSM (Optical Security Media) technology to prevent counterfeiting and prevent tampering, while facilitating fast and accurate authentication in the field. HID Global supplies the program's ID cards as well as a decentralized personalization solution that includes hundreds of secure ID card printer/encoder systems. The company has also created a center with DGM in Luanda, Angola, to offer technical service and technological support.
"HID Global and DGM are the first recipients in this new category, their contribution to the Angolan national identification document program was one of the most prominent events at this year's awards. We consider them to be one of the top five candidates in the entire competition," said Adrian Courtenay, president of World Business Media, LLC, the company that publishes Government Security News. "At GSN, we put special efforts every year to update our awards program to highlight the latest and most important technologies that have the greatest impact on the market. One of these new categories was the most prominent national identification document program, and angola's program is an excellent example of the kind of projects we were looking to showcase."
The company was also recognized with a GSN magazine award in 2010 for its contribution to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' (USCIS) next generation of green cards in the Most Effective Border Security Program category.
