According to the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR), an estimated 13.5 million people require humanitarian aid.
Of this number, the UNHCR estimates there are over five million registered Syrian refugees.
IrisGuard is revolutionizing the refugee experience by incorporating a biometrics payment system into UN camps, through it’s latest version of the EyePay® system for trusted payments for both banks and blockchain channels, transforming how cash and food humanitarian assistance are delivered to vulnerable refugees.
The EyePay® Platform is all-inclusive humanitarian system serving the UNHCR, the World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in providing legal digital identities, cash, food and non-food based assistance to vulnerable refugees throughout the Middle-East and Africa.
(BBC Technology program “Click” reports from UNHCR refugee camps, IrisGuard’s cutting edge EyeBank technology, providing Syrian refugees financial inclusion on ATMs in the blink of the eye. Courtesy of BBC, IrisGuard and YouTube)
IrisGuard has achieved this milestone over four years of continued operations in concordant cohesion with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The UNHCR has flawlessly enrolled over 2.3 million refugees (over 75 nationalities) from Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Syria using IrisGuard’s state-of-the-art EyePay® technology.
In so doing, the UNHCR has achieved financial inclusion for unbanked refugees and enabled them to efficiently receive international donor cash assistance directly on unattended bank ATM’s and food at checkout counters in supermarkets and nonfood items in camps, all while refugees are either unable or restricted from opening a bank account by law.
The UNHCR has further deployed other operational real-time 24/7/365 use cases, such as refugee repatriation & resettlement with the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Further use cases under development include:
- International remittance to refugees in camps and urban areas by family and friends abroad
- Healthcare services
- Microfinance, and
- Essential services for the betterment of refugees and displaced persons
According to IrisGuard, is evident that mission-critical performance cannot be guaranteed or attained through any other biometric technology except with IrisGuard’s pristine technology.
Instantaneous, around the clock, cross-country operational transactions are being reliably executed in under a few seconds, irregardless of where the refugee is located and irrespective of the harsh environmental conditions that the IrisGuard platform has to operate in.
This is achieved uniquely with one’s own iris without a card, pin, username, password, ID or mobile phone as many refugees simply do not own or carry or can afford such tokens.
(Learn More, courtesy of National Geographic, IrisGuard and YouTube)
IrisGuard’s cutting-edge EyePay® system has been tightly coupled with the novel “Blockchain” technology in one of the refugee camps in Jordan where more than 10,000 beneficiaries have benefited from EyePay®/Blockchain combination
As refugees purchase their food items using the eye, financial transactions are instantly settled on an Ethereum Blockchain which was specifically developed for that purpose.
This is largest permissioned (private) Ethereum Blockchain implementation the world has seen to-date.
Securing the last mile in Blockchain using the EyePay® system was envisaged by IrisGuard where, in-lieu of people receiving the Blockchain cryptic private key, which is the weakest link in the chain, their eyes becomes that key; it cannot be lost, stolen, forged, copied or forgotten.
By streamlining the process within the EyePay® Platform, IrisGuard:
- Ensures that large-scale Blockchain deployments are possible and in the process,
- Eliminates fraudulent transactions and misappropriation of funds while reducing fees considerably.
This is precisely what International donors are looking for in-order to stretch their humanitarian donations even further, in-order to cover more beneficiaries particularly with today’s enduring deficit in international humanitarian funding.
Additionally, the EyePay® platform does away with the time-consuming and expensive card issuance and maintenance process while not relying on the presence of a smartphone with every refugee.
These are formidable challenges for a Blockchain success in the immensely unbanked humanitarian world.
Furthermore, the blockchain automatically records transactions on a secure ledger, and therefore merchant settlement is instantaneous, which means shorter payment cycles as compared to traditional banking and third-party processor methods, something which merchants welcome tremendously.
With annual poverty assistance alone exceeding $400bn, the EyePay® can play a preeminent role in effectively streamlining the Blockchain and bringing it to the mass market with millions of aid dependent persons benefiting from immediate financial inclusion as a direct result.
“IrisGuard is proud of its partnerships with UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF, IOM and all UN agencies and NGO’s trying to make a sustainable difference in the lives of impoverished, undocumented and defenseless refugees,” commented Imad Malhas, Founder and CEO of IrisGuard Inc.
“We hope to continue doing our part in realizing a fair and dignified distribution system for the world’s unbanked populations.”
This piece is featured in the AST July 2017 *Fully Interactive* Digital Magazine: 66 pages jam-packed with the Newest Physical & Cyber Technologies in the Government Security Market Today.
