NIMC Concludes User Acceptance Testing For National ID Cards

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has carried out User Acceptance Test (UAT) on the National Identity Smart Card facility to ensure that it conforms to international standards and best global practices in tune with the defined objective of the NIMS project.

The UAT is aimed at meeting the complete requirements as provided by Datacard Group to NIMC, while demonstrating the comprehensive function of the system, which include communication with other sub-systems in NIMC, identifying each citizen by installing personal data and applications on the chip and physical customisation of the card to suit each individual. It also includes complete delivery of the validated system.

The director-general of the Commission, Chris Onyemenam, said this yesterday in Abuja during an interview. He said that the test case “was necessary to check the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) and the System Acceptance Test (SAT) configuration.”

Explaining the process of the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) and the System Acceptance Testing (SAT), the director-general noted that 'test data' was used to encode on the chip of the e-ID card before it could be printed.

He said, “The smartcard chip encoding applications allows for personal information to be encrypted on the chip of the national identity card according to the card profiles, while the machines was used to write names on the card.”

Speaking further, the NIMC boss said the applications currently encoded on the chip are: ICAO/e passport application which enables the card to be used as a travel document; the eID application which is the holders Identity; the PKI application which ensures that the card conforms to international security standards; the MOC application which would be used for authenticating and verifying the holder; and the EMV application which allows the card to be used as a payment solution, e.g as an ATM card.