New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has needed to allocate an extra $5 million in staffing funds to the city's municipal smart card programme following huge demand for the id.De Blasio said this week that more than 250,000 card application appointments had been made as of Monday – nearing the 300,000 planned annual enrollment announced at the program's launch.With more than 260,000 ID appointments made and a majority of those appointments expected to be seen in the next 90 days, the mayor has allocated $5 million had been added for program staffing.Launched in mid-January, the card scheme is the country's largest municipal card programme. Facial recognition and other technology is set to be used to identify cardholders for the multiple services it will cover.The card also has security features including a city seal and black-and-white "ghost" photo on the card for added fraud prevention, and an embedded hologram.Crucially, the card represents the prospect of financial and social inclusion for undocumented immigrants, raising questions over what breeder documents will be used to validate identities.The card can be used for discounts for prescription drugs, access to city buildings, free memberships to zoos and museums – and recognized as identification to open an account at several banks and credit unions, said the New York Times.In December, Planet Biometrics reported that New York City officials had confirmed that facial recognition software was needed for the card to prevent identity fraud.In an executive order issued 1 December, the city's human resources administration states that the use of duplicate image, facial recognition software for the IDNYC project will be to the benefit of all New Yorkers.The body notes that the biometric data will only be checked against the IDNYC's own database, and that investigators who have been specially trained will be tasked with verifying the identities.
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