An app to find your lost ID

Nairobi; Kenya: There are hundreds of lost national identification cards lying around the country. We don’t have a central ‘lost and found’ location where their owners can visit to collect them. Instead, they go to the police station for an abstract and straight to the Immigration ministry (or Huduma Centre these days) to apply for new ones. Meanwhile, there are some crooks using their identity cards to commit criminal activities including forging of documents.

“Those who have applied for new IDs will make countless trips to the issuing offices before they finally receive them. This is because our Government still doesn’t have an effective mechanism of informing applicants that their IDs are ready for collection,” says Kevin Maina.

Thanks to his innovative thinking, Kevin seems to have a solution that is promising to cut down trips to Immigration offices. The 21-year-old aeronautical engineering student has developed an application dubbed ‘Smart ID’. This is an app with a central database that can be fed information on lost IDs, which can then be made available to people using the right codes.

To come up with the app, Kevin used basic html and PhP systems combined with USSD technology. The application is available both on a mobile platform and online through a website.

Kenyans may be familiar with USSD technology because there are so many services that one can access by pressing a number like *144# and clicking send on a mobile phone. This can be used on even the most basic of phones.

“If you have lost your ID, all you will do is to enter a USSD code on your phone (say *321*600#) and you will be prompted with options to report your ID number, name, mobile number and the town where it was lost. This information will be sent to a central database and stored there,” explains Kevin.

Similarly, if someone found an ID, they will also enter USSD code *321*600# on their mobile phone and they will get an option to enter the ID number, name on the ID and also the town where the ID has been found and a contact number. This will not only be stored on the database but the person who had entered the ID as lost would receive a message notifying them that it has been found.

“Those who have access to the Internet can also visit the Smart ID website www.smartid.co.ke where they will find an interface to enter the lost or recovered ID details and in the same way, the system will match similarities of lost and found and the owner will be notified,” adds Kevin.

Other than this service, the system also collects data such as how many IDs are lost, where they were lost and where they were found. According to Kevin, this is information can be very useful to law the police. If the data shows that many IDs have been lost say in Mombasa, it could suggest that there is high crime or even an ID racket in the area, which then warrants investigation.

The database and its technology can also be adopted by the Registrations of Persons department, which is responsible for issuing ID cards, enabling them to inform ID applicants when their IDs are ready.

“This software has been tried and tested with a sample population and has worked just as I envisioned it. I have also been in touch with the authorities especially the police who agree that it could make a big difference, but the adoption might take a long while,” shares Kevin.

Kevin says for the system to work fully, it will need the goodwill of Kenyans.