Sri Lanka expects to call new tenders for the Digital Identity Card (ID) with new technical changes for the project after last year’s failure, State Minister of Technology Kanaka Herath said.

Speaking to TV Derana on Wednesday (19), he said that the Government will go for another tender process following the cabinet approval in the coming weeks to select a developer for the project.

He said that the technical committee has made several technical changes to the project after the two indian companies were disqualified last year.

Last year, a tender to select a firm to print Sri Lanka’s new digital ID cards was launched. Shortly after, it was announced that the multi-million dollar tender for Sri Lanka’s digital identity project was refloated, following the disqualification of two Indian bidders Madras Security Printers (MSP) and Protein Technologies that submitted bids.

Herath said that after selecting a developer for the project, the Government will build the required platform to collect the data in the first stage of the project.

He added that the Government intends to use the Mosip platform on which the project will be built.

The State Minister said that once the platform is set up, the Government will establish 800-1200 data collection centres islandwide to collect the data for a period of one year.

Security concerns were raised prior to the disqualification of the Indian companies as there were claims that national data would be exposed.

Last year, the State Minister said that data privacy and protection of personal data of Sri Lankan citizens with Indian companies was cited for disqualification of the companies of the India-funded digital ID card project.