The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) will introduce biometric membership cards tied to the national Ghana Card database for its national and regional elections on . The cards, produced by Margins Limited—the same firm that manufactures Ghana’s national ID—are intended to curb impersonation and streamline verification at polling centres. Speaking at a campaign meeting in Kumasi on 19 June, GJA president Albert Kwabena Dwumfour said, “The digital Membership Card that we’ve all been awaiting will be issued for the election. Margins led the NIA cards, so they’re going to link it up with the NIA cards so once they get the name, the details will come and they’ll print it.”
How the biometric voting system will work
Each card bears the member’s Ghana Card number and a machine-readable chip. On election day, handheld readers at voting centres will ping the National Identification Authority’s Identity Verification Service in real time; only the Ghana Card number is transmitted, and no biometric templates leave the NIA database. Members who have not collected their cards by 30 June can still vote by presenting their physical Ghana Card as a fallback, but the association expects most of its roughly 3,000 eligible voters to use the new credential. Margins Limited began printing on 19 June and says all cards will be ready for pick-up before the poll.
The system builds on the NIA’s February 2025 plan to extend Ghana Card functionality into payments and public-service access. Because the card readers rely on the same backend, GJA officials say the new process should avoid the manual name-lookups that slowed previous elections. Data are encrypted at rest and in transit, according to the association, and poll officials receive only a green-or-red verification response—no personal health or financial data.
Part of Ghana’s broader digital-ID expansion
The journalists’ rollout follows Ghana’s chip-embedded e-passport launch on 28 April 2025 and echoes wider efforts to modernise identity systems across the country. Earlier initiatives include the National Identification Authority’s mobile digital-ID application that extends Ghana Card credentials to smartphones.
While other professional bodies—such as the Ghana Medical Association with its QR-coded licences—have piloted digital credentials, the GJA is among the first known Ghanaian organisations to link an internal voting process directly to the national biometric registry. Beyond the elections, Dwumfour said the association is evaluating health-insurance packages for members and new professional-development programmes for bloggers and community radio reporters, signalling that the biometric card could evolve into a multipurpose credential for press-sector benefits.
Source: GBC Ghana Online
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
