Biomobility

E-inclusion is the new buzz word in the world of global internet policy. Governments are especially keen for all their citizens - young, old, literate or not - to be online. This fact is highlighted in the latest EIU’s E-readiness rankings which were released last week. While a few top-ranked companies exchanged places - the US ranked first, taking over from Denmark - the gap between wired and non-wired countries remained stark. India, for all its high-powered growth, ranked 54th out of 70. The Philippines, China, Egypt, Columbia, Russia, Nigeria, and Ukraine, to name a few, all ranked lower.

But how to get someone online who a) can’t read or b) can’t afford a computer? A new project from the Department of Rural Development in the state of Andhra Pradesh is providing some answers. Using readily available technology, it allows government departments to issue payments to citizens with specially-equipped mobile phones. These phones are loaded with applications which, in turn, communicate with biometric smartcards via RFID to validate a customer’s details. So, a illiterate farmer is notified by a special ring tone that  his monthly government stipend has arrived. He then takes the phone and card to a bank or shop to get his money, where his fingerprint is checked against his card. 

The programme will soon be extended to allow users to make other transactions such as housing payments or small loans repayments. To make this really take off, though, the technology should probably move to eye-scans, thereby avoiding all the business of a biometric card which can be lost or stolen. But these kinds of schemes will surely be an interim solution. Full internet access, whether by phone or PC, is becoming as basic to economic development as water.