Stolen BVD’s: We’re working with police to bring matter to rest, says EC

The Electoral Commission (EC) says it is working with the police to bring the matter of an unauthorised person in possession of the its Biometric Verification Device (BVD) to rest.

In a statement signed by Samuel Tettey, deputy chairman, operations, the EC said: “A stolen BVD cannot jeopardise the integrity of the 2024 Elections,” and stated its resolve to address the concern.
The EC said the stolen BVD was nothing more than an off-the-shelf device and could not be used to compromise an election without the necessary technical and security protocols.

It said five laptops, which formed part of Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) Kits were stolen from its stores in April 2024.
The EC said five BVDs were also vandalised.
It said two BVDs were stolen from the Tarkwa Nsuaem District and North Tongu District respectively during the December 2023 District Level Elections (DLES).

The Electoral Commission said it undertook deliberate process of “preparing” a biometric verification device for any election ensuring that only devices prepared for a particular election could be used for that election.

“This process is robust and is not vulnerable to manipulation. The possession of a BVD that has not gone through this rigorous process that is yet to happen for the 2024 election does not affect the integrity of the election,” it said.

The EC urged the public to note that the voter verification application had been designed such that it would only work with data that had been prepared, audited, encrypted, and signed by a secure process.
It said access to that process had been highly restricted and without access to the Secure Process, voter data could not be generated to work with the BVD.

“The Data that is loaded onto the BVDs are set to be activated for a particular Election Day. A stolen BVD, therefore, cannot work in the December 2024 Elections,” the Commission stressed.

It said the BVD, as part of its start-up process, would check for the integrity of the data that had been loaded onto it and if the voter data on it had been altered in any way, the start- up process would be halted and the BVD would not work.

The Commission added that the activation of the BVDs would involve the use of activation codes that could only be downloaded from the EC’s Secure System and that system had been restricted to election officials with the right access credentials.

“A BVD without its activation code cannot be used for the verification of voters. The data that is loaded onto the BVD must conform with the details of Voters on the voters register for each polling station,” it explained.

It said since the voters register for polling stations for the 2024 General Election would be different from previous elections, any data on a BVD that was activated for a previous election would not conform with the voters register at the particular polling station on 7 December 2024.

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