With Largest Port Community System & BSID, Indian Ports and Maritime Sector is Giving Boost to Digital India

Digital Transformation in Indian Ports and Maritime Sector! With the world’s largest port community system and Biometric Seafarers Identity Document, the Modi government is ushering digital revolution at Indian Ports. According to Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Mansukh Mandviya, PCS1x- the world’s largest port community system, is a user-friendly interface that brings together various stakeholders of the maritime sector and provides them with seamless payments and transactions. It has cloud based new generation technology with user-friendly interface. The system has been upgraded to National Maritime Logistics Portal. With this system, the turnaround time has been reduced to just 24 hours from five to six days.

The Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways also stated that India is the first country in the world to issue Biometric Seafarers Identity Document (BSID) with facial biometric to seafarers. Earlier, Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways had said that the BSID introduced modern security features. It has a biometric chip embedded in it. The BSID card’s security is ensured at various levels and through different methods. At the time of capturing the data, the live face is cross matched through passport photo utilizing a face matching software. There are two optical security features in the card- Micro prints/micro texts as well as Unique Guilloche pattern. A software was created for capturing the facial biometrics as well as its authentication through the public key infrastructure.

According to the ministry, a record of each SID issued is maintained in a national database and its related information is accessible globally. The BSID project has been taken up in India in collaboration with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, located in Mumbai. The SID’s issuance involves the collection of biometric as well as demographic details of the seafarers, their verification. Only then, the card is issued to them.

Source: FinancialExpress