DHAKA: Country’s leading private mobile phone operator Grameenphone (GP) has successfully completed biometric verification re-registration of their over 23.27 million customers.

The biometric verification process has been done as per the guidelines provided by BTRC and figure constitutes 41% of the operator’s customer base.

From last January the government initiated re-registration of mobile phone subscribers through the biometric process. Through this process customer’s NID and fingerprint is verified by the Election Commission (EC) against EC’s database.

“I would like to thank our customers for coming forward to participate in the re-registration process and grateful to them for their support. The channel partners are also doing a wonderful job in supporting this huge task,” said GP chief corporate affairs officer Mahmud Hossain.

Clarifying its position with the concerns raised over fingerprint storage by mobile phone operators, GP would like to strongly reiterate that the company does not store any fingerprints on its own system.

Fingerprint information is sent directly to the EC through the automated system for real time verification. GP only receive Yes/No message from the EC system.

Notably, customer fingerprints are only scanned to match fingerprints already collected by the EC during their voter registration process.

GP requests all subscribers who are yet to re-register their SIMs to do it at their earliest convenience without fear of data misuse.

As per the regulatory directive, the deadline for re-registration is April 30.

Re-registration is being done at more than 43,000 GP biometric points across the country.

The subscribers require bringing a copy of their National Identity (NID) card, a passport size photograph and the active SIM intended for re-registration.

BDST: 1833 HRS, MAR 15, 2016
MIH/AKA/RR