It is trialling a hi-tech system that takes passport and digital photos in 14 of its Postshops, including its Manners St branch in central Wellington.
The software behind the system could also let NZ Post capture fingerprints and voice samples for identification purposes.
Agency services head Mandy Smith said that if the trial went well, the photo-capture system would be installed in about 150 of the company's 280 Postshop-Kiwibank branches by early next year at a cost that would be in the low millions of dollars.
Though people will be able to get passport photos at a cost of $20 for a set of six prints, the state-owned enterprise's main goal was not to take on the high-street chemist, she said.
Instead, NZ Post will need the system for a contract it is negotiating with Internal Affairs under which it would enrol people in the Government's $122 million iGovt identity verification scheme. It also expects to provide biometric identity verification for other public and private sector clients – for example, to produce identity cards.
Under the voluntary iGovt scheme, people would visit a Postshop to be digitally photographed, have their credentials checked and to obtain a password and logon that could be used to securely access government services online.
People would either register their mobile phone, so a one-off code could be texted to them when they needed to conduct a secure transaction, or would be issued with a "two-factor" security token, similar to those used by banks to secure internet-banking transactions.
Behind Post's hi-tech photo-capture service is a software system supplied by United States firm Daon, which Daon has also sold to Australia Post.
It can remotely control the camera, raise and lower a background screen and check whether photos will meet the quality criteria of the particular client – such as a passport office – before they are taken.
So far, the software has been configured so as to only allow photos that meet the criteria of the New Zealand Passport Service or the British Home Office, for which NZ Post is an agent.
Smith said that meant there was much less chance of a passport photo being rejected by the relevant passport authority. If that happened, NZ Post would offer a free reshoot.
The software is capable of storing digital photos as part of an electronic record, alongside biographical data and scans of documents that customers brought in, though NZ Post has no plans to use that feature yet.
"We are starting with the basic photo capture, but the system is modular, so we can add in features as we get demand for the services it can provide."
Smith believed the fingerprinting capability was most likely to be used as part of any agreements NZ Post won to process visas applications on behalf of overseas governments.
Banks have considered using voice verification instead of passwords to check the identity of people accessing phone banking.
Although organisations could capture voice samples and enrol people in such schemes over the phone, rather than in person at a Postshop, the better the original voice sample, the better the assurety of the identity checks that could then be carried out, Smith said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Tom Pullar-Strecker
Quelle/Source: Stuff, 29.08.2011
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