[December 15, 2009] Mexico hires Axtel, Unisys to make biometric IDs Tweet (EFE Ingles Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Mexico City, Dec 15 (EFE).- A consortium comprising Axtel and the Mexican subsidiary of U.S. information technology giant Unisys won a contract to create biometric identity cards for Mexico's 107 million people, the country's government said. The bid from telecom company Axtel, S.A.B. de C.V. and Unisys de Mexico SA de CV was 664.5 million ($51 million), the Mexican interior ministry said in a communique. At midyear the Mexican government announced the creation of a population register with citizen ID cards that would include biometric data including fingerprints, iris scans and blood type. The ministry said the step denotes progress in completing the National Population Register in order to accredit and certify "with certainty" the identity of 107 million Mexicans. It said that the winning bid included the installation of an IT infrastructure for the storage and maintenance of data at the interior ministry, plus the "acquisition of biometric search engines to bring up the photograph of a particular face, the iris of both eyes, and fingerprints." The ministry said that the security of confidential data will be guaranteed. Last month Mexican authorities announced the purchase of equipment that will be used to capture that data for the ID cards at a cost of 299.4 million pesos ($23 million). EFE jrm/cd (c) 2009 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]