A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF COMPUTING AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Abstract

The advancement in computing technologies like artificial interagency, cloud computing, smart cards, and biometrics has changed conventional citizen identification and data management to more accurate, agile, and robust identification platforms. Most of the developed countries are using such platforms while other developing countries are in the process of introducing stage. However, in developing countries like Ethiopia, the absence of such capability foils people from receiving high-quality services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the issues and challenges with the current Ethiopian citizen identification and data management platforms, and designing an alternative biometric-based citizen identification platform over a cloud. The research method used in this study is based on the design science paradigm. To investigate and analyze the issues and challenges in the existing state of art Ethiopian citizen IDs and data management systems, three fact-finding/primary data collection techniques i.e., survey, interview, and technical observation were employed at selected sites. After an in-depth analysis of collected facts and a detailed review of literature, the study concludes that the current Ethiopian citizen identification and data management system is now obsolete and error-prone with several challenges and it needs a next generation transformation/upgrade with the intervention of technologies like Cloud. The study concluded with new a newly proposed biometric-based Ethiopian citizen identification and data management framework (ECIDMF) overcloud. The parameters considered were ease of Availability, Reliability, Location independence, Security, Cost-effectiveness, On-demand scalability, Performance, Flexible payment system, Open Boundary Accessibility, etc. Finally, the ECIDM Framework is proposed, developed, demonstrated for validation using a functional prototype with selected features. Thus this research can be a new knowledge baseline for the transformation of Ethiopia one step towards the next generation of citizen IDs. The user acceptance was observed as 72% satisfied for Ease of recovery from disaster, 70% for Cross-boundary accessibility, 70% for Service availability(24/7), 73% for Reliability and integrity, 69% for Cost effectiveness, 69% for Security and privacy, 75% for Scalability & User-friendliness, 73% for Identification accuracy and agility, 72% for Intra and Inter-Organization access, 72% for Smart search, 70% for Identification inclusiveness, 70% for Platform independence, 73% for Automatic generation of the report, and 69% for green computing support.