A bill before federal legislators will make institutions liable for mismanaging personal data they collect, with their leaders facing a criminal offence punishable by up to 25 years imprisonment.

A Project Office under the Prime Minister’s Office has signed deals with over half a dozen financial institutions and 30 public agencies to speed up the national identification registration programme. It has availed its database to these institutions, which conduct registration, after reaching an agreement with Tech5, a tech company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The tech company agreed to make an open source platform available and supply its technologies for face, fingerprint, and iris biometric identification free of charge.

Legislators apportioned 600 million Br for five projects implemented by the Ministry of Information & Communications Technology, including developing a national database and disaster recovery data centre.

The Council of Ministers approved the bill governing national ID last week before sending it to Parliament for ratification. Federal legislators are expected to vote on the draft proclamation next month. The bill proposes that the central database storing primary data and biometric information should be inside the country.

Over a dozen firms are vying to tie a five million Birr consulting contract drafting legal frameworks and guidelines for the national ID programme. The prospective firm will be expected to conduct an impact assessment on the prevailing personal data protection practices. Floated by the Ministry, the bid closed last week.

According to Huria Ali, a state minister for Information & Communications Technology, financial and technical evaluations will take one month to complete. Officials plan to announce the selected company after Parliament passes the bill. The project is part of the Ethiopia Digital Foundations Project, financed by the World Bank, with 200 million dollars in credit.