If you've gotten a birth certificate recently, you may be questioning if it's legit. That's because it's now being printed on a normal typing sheet - no special heavy stock paper and no embossed government seal.
It sure looks flaky, but according to the CEO in the Ministry of E-Governance, the authenticity lies in the QR code - not the quality of the document. He explained more today.
Jose Urbina, CEO, Ministry of E-Governance
"When we look at the region, I had a friend from Honduras, he was working in Belize many years ago and he said you know what I need a birth certificate and I need it quick. I told him, how will you get your birth certificate all the way in Honduras? He said that's not a problem. He went on his smart phone, he applied for it, five minutes after, he got it printed on the printer here in Belize. He said alright I already have my birth certificate and I had the same concern, that's just a page. How do you verify that that's a legitimate birth paper? And he went further and said look, it's on the bar code it has. You can go online and verify the authenticity of this birth paper. And that's what we're dealing with here in Belize. As a ministry, we should have taken a more aggressive educational campaign as it relates to the CRVS and the new birth paper to educate our community what it's all about. Having the mindset changes that are required to ensure that the validity of a birth certificate is no longer on the actual paper it is printed on, it is how you can verify that that document is a valid document at the Belize Vital Statistics and that is through the QR code you can make that validation."
Courtney Menzies:
"So how do you maintain the integrity of the barcode if it's a piece of paper that can be ripped or get wet or anything?"
Jose Urbina, CEO, Ministry of E-Governance
"But that is why, the integrity you decide, you can easily take that paper and laminate it if you want to safeguard it. But the government, through Vital Statistics, they are not charging you for a reprint. Once you apply for it and you have it in your email or you have it delivered to your nearest police station for example or the nearest Vital Statistics office, you can make copies, you can reprint that document so when you say how can you safeguard the integrity of that QR code, in terms of the hard copy, you can always reprint that document. in terms of safeguarding the QR code, which you can say I can develop a new QR code anywhere online, but can you authenticate or validate that QR code on the CRVS system? That would be no, you cannot."
