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UNHCR & MICROSOFT TEAM UP WITH SECURIT
Securit Supply Registration Kits for UNHCR
15th September 2001
Bill Gates and High Commissioner Sadako Ogata with the Securit Registration Kit
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As hundreds of thousands of refugees poured out of Kosovo in 1999, one of the most distressing aspects of their plight was the attempt by Serbian authorities tostrip many of them of any form of identicication - effectively trying to make them 'non persons'. UNHCR registers refugees - but only after they have settled in a camp or a reception centre and normally allow them to receive emergency aid such as food. The scale and speed of the Kosovo exodus and the need to give back to the refugees an identity was obviously a problem of a far greater dimension than in a 'normal' crisis. Microsoft, aided by industry partners such as Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Securit World Ltd and ScreenCheck, developed from scratch a so-called registration field kit including computers, digital cameras, signature pads, special ID card printers and related hardware and software.
By Ed Heyden
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