The Importance of NADRA’s Swipe-able ID Card

Romair #20 I was only kidding about the technical stuff. I dont see how you can call it the ``first`` datawarehouse. There must be tons of them around - in the public sector, the state bank and the revenue authority have recently gone through some major upgrades to their computer systems. and obviously in the private sector too. And I agree that NADRA is a very useful exercise - the linchpin for modernizing public sector and security systems that will take place in the years ahead.

tahmad #19: IT is my profession. I do it day and night. So that is probably the only thing I know really well. Unfortunately, this site does not provide much opportunity to comment on it. This article, though somewhat poorly written, should have created great debate. IT in Pakistan is something I am greatly interested in. So I do have some knowledge of it. As well as what goes on in India.

As for Major Generals, they should not be running civilian enterprises. Obviously. That is not to say there aren`t some brilliant technically qualified Majors (or Major Generals) in the Army. Having said that, as I have always said, if the Major General delivers, and NADRA is a success story, people will not care one bit that they guy was a Major General. They will only care, if he does not deliver.

``But do you know the difference between the third and fourth levels of normalization?``

Yes. There is a fifth level also.

``maiden name of the mother of the man who wrote the original mathematical article on normalization, when did he write the article, and why was this man name after a fish?``

I assume you are talking about Dr. Ted Codd of IBM. Interestingly, it was Larry Ellison of Oracle who figured out the importance of Codd`s research, before IBM did.......

In any case, succesfully running its first datawarehouse (if it is one) is quite a achievement, for Pakistan. Kind of like assembling its firt TV.

Warlus #17 If you think the subject of this article is trivial then I think your think like allah ditta tanga walla. In fact, even allah ditta is probably smarter than you, and your thinking is more like allah ditta`s horse.

but then, a horse does something useful. You want instead to see the 10 millionth article on some stupid political issue on chowk. So try to reach the level of allah ditta`s horse, then of allah ditta, then of a man who has been through middle school. Then come back and read this article. It will then make more sense to you.

Romair #14 OK, so you know the difference between normalized and denormalized databases. But do you know the difference between the third and fourth levels of normalization?

And what was the maiden name of the mother of the man who wrote the original mathematical article on normalization, when did he write the article, and why was this man name after a fish?

OK, dont get serious and start trying to dig up the answers in order to these questions. Your Knowledge of Everything is not under challenge here. ;-)

But seriously, I actually went to the NADRA office in Islamabad once in order to see what they were up to. They had this major general in uniform sitting there who was all gung ho about how they had all these quadzillions of input forms that he was getting organized to be entered to the system. I wanted to ask him why he was not with his troops doing whatever military men are supposed to be doing (like parading around or something), but decided he might delete my record if I got him upset.

More seriously, I think in NADRA we are witnessing a very important step in streamlining government functions in Pakistan.

nadya is this such a big issue that you had to write a whole article on it? Trivial stuff this is. Sorry.

NADRA needs establihed criterions and a standardized policy in every regard, and stick by it. i had to apply for the ID card twice, the second time was four months after my first attempt, inspite of numerous reminders to NADRA.

and its sleep-inducing, for sure.

Does anybody have any idea about the cost of this system? The reason I ask is, some 3 years back Venezuela asked for bids to re-do their national ID card system. The lowest quote was from South Korea (I don`t recall if it was from Samsung or Hyundai) for $250 million. That is for a population of approximately 27 million persons. A bid from the US was for $100 million more. Remember, we are talking about computer hardware, software, communications, etc., plus all the equipment for hundreds of sites needed to issue photo-IDs.

With a population of 140 million, how much is Pakistan paying for this system?

Will you guys have on-line terminals at the borders near Spin Boldak, Torkham, Tora Bora, etc., so that you can nab Osama bin Laden when he presents his ID to the Immigration checkpoint to cross into Pakistan?

tahmad #13: I asked a simple question. Is it a datawarehouse or not? You seem to want to create an issue out of it.

``And you would know that the answer from the article since the article makes it clear that unique Ids are created as a result of a single process that results in this data entry. No data gathering from other systems going on.``

The article does not mention the word, ``unique.`` But it does mention the word, ``datawarehouse.``

``just swipe the card, data from Nadra’s DATA WAREHOUSE is transferred in a matter of seconds and Abracadabra the job is done.`` So the author is stating it is a ware house. I am not sure it is or isn`t. Hence my question whether it is a datawarehouse or not.

From what I understand, Data warehouses are designed for OLAP and not OLTP. Transaction processing, i.e. the entry side is done through normalized systems. Becasue they are more efficient for that. These are then loaded into denormalized data warehouses. Since denomalization reduces the number of joins required to access the data. Not to mention, a reduction in the number of different spread out databases to access the data, i.e. everything is in one place, in a fashion where it can be accessed quickly.

Hence the data entry part, is not what defines the warehouse. In fact, that is not the purpose of the datawarehouse, to begin with. So it doesn`t really matter how the information was entered. In many cases the initial info is loaded through batch scripts (I have done this quite a bit) or through ETL tools like Informatica or DataStage. It is how it is accessed that requires a warehouse.

If all of Pakistan is supposed to be accessing this information, and it will be used by all kinds of organiztions, then the amount of data in it will be huge, probably well into terabytes (??). Such a large amount of data, at some stage will have to end up in a datawarehouse, for access purposes, if it isn`t already in one (the author suggests that it is).

`` Thus presuming that you know what a datawarehouse is. You obviously dont.``

I have some experience in datawarehousing. Though I do not claim it as my expertise, and am by no means an expert. So it is quite possible that you have more experience than I. I worked with Bill Inmon`s - who is considered the father of Datawarehousing - company, Prism Solutions on Datawarehousing projects, as a consultant. I was on the team that set up portions of the Eddie Bauer datawarehouse and Smith Klien datawarehouse, to name two. I also did research work with a professor, who is one of the big names in Data Mining. And I worked briefly with an Iranian lady, Sima Yazdani, who is, according to her, one of the main persons running Cisco very famous Datawarehouse. She is the author of a book titled, Data Warehousing with Oracle.

Albeit on all these projects, I was involved more on the data massaging and cleansing side, and not on the modeling side. But I did pick up some of the basics of modeling also.

Perhaps, individuals, who are technical experts on the modeling side, could comment furthur.....

Romair #11 You just proved that there IS such a thing as a stupid question.

You ask a ``technical question`` as you say, i.e. if NADRA is a datawarehouse. Thus presuming that you know what a datawarehouse is. You obviously dont.

You obviously dont since, if you knew what a datawarehouse is, you should already know from the article the answer is no.

And you would know that the answer from the article since the article makes it clear that unique Ids are created as a result of a single process that results in this data entry. No data gathering from other systems going on.

Look: You seem like a decent fellow. Do you have to prove that you are all-knowing as well as decent?

The steps taken by NADRA are in the right direction, but i dont agree with the naivety of the author. I do hope i am wrong on this, but heres why:
1. povery alleviation: Identity theft is not the same as risk mitigation from the banks context. Just because someone is a citizen, does not entitle them to a loan.
2. Pakistan really doesnt care about its citizens. Being a pakistani is not an advantage in or outside pakistan (unfortunately).

Some other points:
The id cards do not have any biometrics- picture quality is not always a good way of authentication.
Having *everyone* in a database is scary, i hope NADRA`s got real computer geeks and wizards to ensure that this db is not hacked.

But in the end, NADRA is a step in the right direction, but id cards in themselves mean nothing.

Nadia, is the NADRA database a real datawarehouse, in the technical sense of the term. If that is the case, then is it the first datawarehouse in Pakistan? Do you have any technical specs, on it, and any resource specs, like how big is the team implementing it, what is the size, which companies products are being used, etc.

Ref atifhassan #9

[....i m heading the CIA computer branch...]

Yeah, and I am the Queen of England.

Ref #8 mr dumb a$$ the iraqi thing was just an example...the real thing would be afghanis aquiring paki id cards one more thing for ur worthless brain i m heading the CIA computer branch so such cases come int my notice way b4 worthless ppl like u get to them :)
i pity suckers like U

Ref atifhassan #5

[its not all very rosy....since its pakistan ppl have started aquiring fake ID cards already all it takes is 10,000 rupees and therefore an iraqi man can aquire a paki NID....]

Is there a rush by foreigners to acquire Pak ID cards?

Omigosh, Romair is right! I should now start wearing the T-shirt with the Pak flag on it!

Iraqi man acquiring a Pak ID card? I know mindless submission makes one dumb but going from the frying pan into the fire?

Despite all sorts of weaknesses that this will go through, the single database concept is an excellent one. One question: how long does it take to get the new ID?

At the passport office, when they swiped my NADRA id card, a message appeared:

``Further proof of identity required``...as if an ID card is not enough or may be i resemble a female version of UBL or SH...way to go NADRA