Project Description
During the last decade the usage of cellular mobile phones has infiltrated and revolutionized peoples’ life style in Bangladesh. Although it has already been proved that such usage has positive impact on the development of various disciplines of the society, it has some drawbacks associated with it as well. Different types of criminal activities such as extortion, intimidation and harassment over mobile phones have reported to be increased, which affected country’s image and provoked fear in the mind of general public. To prevent such activities the SIM registration process with biometrics verification including online personal identity verification documents has been promulgated as mandatory compliance from 16 December 2015. As a result, 112.1 million subscribers across all mobile operators re-registered their SIM through biometrics verification within 31 May-2016. After this date the unregistered SIMs were disconnected.
In order to monitor the said verification activities and apply necessary regulatory tools to that system, a central biometrics verification monitoring platform was set up. The data center of that central system was placed at the BTRC’s office.
On July 16, 2017, the Central Biometrics Verification Monitoring Platform (CBVMP) was fully launched. As a result, all mobile operators’ SIM registration, re-registration, de-activation, replacement, ownership changes were being fully monitored.

http://www.btrc.gov.bd/central-biometrics-verification-monitoring-platform-cbvmp

• Bangladesh

CBVMP by its nature can be replicable at the national level in any country. Specially in developing and under developed countries where fixed phone lines are costly and not much available, such systems can play a significant role to provide citizen services in addition to provide security to the citizens. Any country would be able design and develop such systems with its own information technology experts and servers available in the market.

• The CBVMP system can be considered as sustainable project considering the following aspects:
• The system is designed and developed completely by local information technology professionals who are available 24X7 to provide any technical support.
• The required hardware and proprietary software are widely available in the market. The hardware and software can be easily upgraded at any time.
• The system is scalable. Modules can be added, modified or eliminated at any time with very little cost.
• During the last five years of its operation the system down time was ‘zero’ minute.
• The Government has already taken initiative to integrate this system with other “National e-Service Systems” i.e. national revenue system, national health system etc. to provide better citizen services.

The implementation of CBVMP system contributes a lot to promote WSIS values in Bangladesh. The project aims to encourage the Government and other stakeholders to work together to help everybody enjoy the benefits of ICTs in a safe and secure environment. It also promotes research and cooperation enabling effective use of data and software in particular electronic documents and transactions including electronic means of authentication and improve security methods – which is one of the expected outcomes of WSIS action line 5.