São Paulo, July 2024 - As of next Tuesday, July 9, the government of Bahia will begin issuing the National Identity Card, a new identification document that will have only the CPF as its unique number throughout the country, eliminating possible duplicates. The innovation was made possible thanks to the hiring of Griaule, a Brazilian company specializing in biometric recognition, which will provide all the technology for the Bahia government to issue the documents. Griaule 's technology is the most widely used in issuing identification documents in the country, with three million National Identity Cards issued in the last 12 months.

The identification document was created by federal government decree in 2022 and should be adopted by all Brazilian states by the end of the year. The "new RG" will have a QR Code and a digital version available on the GOV.br app, which eliminates the need for a physical document. The issuance process is also promised to be faster: there will no longer be the use of ink to capture fingerprints, nor will it be necessary to take a 3×4 photo, since, in the new system, all the data will be collected in seconds and stored digitally in the data center of the Operations and Intelligence Center of the Salvador Public Security Secretariat. 

Griaule already offers the service that is being launched in Bahia in the states of Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. "From our experience, the other states that already use biometric recognition in issuing the National Identity Card have managed to increase fraud detection and improve citizen service. We've even had a case of an average 50% reduction in the time citizens spend at the counter," says Thiago Ribeiro, Griaule's Business Director.

The first copy of the document will be free. At least 12,000 identity cards will be issued per day, 10,000 of which will be new and 2,000 will be duplicates. Griaule's biometric system (ABIS - Automated Biometric Identification System) is capable of recognizing faces and fingerprints, as well as allowing the facial registration and fingerprints of 14 million people, practically the entire population of the state. 

One of the technical challenges of the project is to be able to compare all the biometrics collected (fingers and face) against the database of the entire population of the state, without this generating queues. "The technology guarantees uniqueness, i.e. that the person is unique in the system based on their biometrics, and also that all data transmission is encrypted, i.e. with protection on information traffic so that sensitive data is hidden, preventing unauthorized users from accessing any information. This system is safer, faster and more accurate than the previous one," says Ribeiro, from Griaule. 

Griaule was punctual in implementing the system, which will bring many benefits such as identifying undocumented people, locating missing persons and using a single system to implement public policies such as biometric verification before supplying high-cost medicines, preventing fraud. 

"The system acquired by the government of Bahia has international quality and accuracy certifications issued by the FBI, and is the same system used by the American Department of Defense and the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), in the management of the largest Brazilian biometric identity base. In this way, we are certifying that the population of Bahia will have access to a very high level of technology," explains Ribeiro, from Griaule. 

About Griaule

Griaule is the largest company in the Americas specializing in biometric recognition systems. It promotes research and innovation in partnership with Unicamp and has been developing the technology that guarantees confidence in ID cards and elections for over 20 years. It has also created an investigative solution used by the federal police, a "Brazilian CSI". 

The company has more than 4,000 clients in over 70 countries, including the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court and the Pentagon (United States), as well as several state governments, such as Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Bahia. Griaule has already been recognized twice by the Financial Times as one of the 500 fastest growing companies in the Americas, in the "America's 500 Fastest Growing Companies" list.