Authorities in Nigeria are planning to employ biometrics in a nationwide census. The country’s National Population Commission has commissioned Bio-Metrica’s Multi-Factor Biometric Census Registration System (CRS) for its efforts in the 2018 Population Census. Handheld devices will collect citizens’ fingerprint and facial biometrics, and the CRS is going to be used to manage that data.

The nationwide biometric registration project comes after a biometric identification system deployed by the country’s banks assisted the Nigerian government to identify payroll fraud in the public service.