Ghana’s Electoral Commission builds ‘secret’ biometric data recovery centre

The Electoral Commission (EC) says all data collected after the country’s biometric registration in May 2012 will be safe.

According to the EC, it has established a data recovery centre outside its head office at an unknown location to serve as a back-up to its central database.

The recovery centre will contain the same data as the central database at the EC’s head office in Accra.

Chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan who disclosed this at a meeting organised by the Editor’s Forum Ghana (EFG) in Accra last week February 15, 2012 explained that the Commission established the recovery centre to protect “data from loss” should there be a fire outbreak or other disasters.

“We have established away from the central database, a data recovery centre elsewhere. I’m not going to tell you where it is,” Dr Afari-Gyan told the gathering.

The aim of the biometric registration, according to the EC, is to replace the existing voters register.

“The exercise will be a complete replacement of the existing voters register and thereby render any previous voter registration invalid for purposes of voting in the 2012 elections,” says Dr Afari-Gyan.

By Ekow Quandzie