Building Blocks — How Jordan's Refugee Camps Turned an Iris Scan into a Once-Only Aid Registration

Za'atari camp was the site of UNHCR's 2013 Biometric Identity Management System (BIMS) rollout, the first large-scale iris-based registration of refugees, designed so a person only needed to enrol once to be recognised across UNHCR's services.

From 2016, the World Food Programme's Building Blocks platform reused that same UNHCR biometric record instead of collecting refugees' data again: an iris scan at camp supermarkets is matched against the existing UNHCR database and the entitlement is settled on a private blockchain ledger — an operational once-only principle applied across two UN agencies. By 2018 the platform had expanded from Azraq camp to Za'atari and King Abdullah Park, supporting $37 million in cash-based assistance, and WFP reported the approach cut financial transaction/bank fees by around 98% versus its previous voucher and e-card system; an earlier phase recorded over 1.1 million transactions moving $23.5 million in entitlements.

The data reuse has not gone unquestioned. In a May 2021 open letter, the digital-rights group Access Now pressed UNHCR and WFP for clarity on whether Jordanian authorities can access the shared biometric servers — noting UNHCR's 2014 donation of 108 iris scanners to Jordan's Ministry of Interior — and on exactly what data flows to the private partners IrisGuard and Cairo Amman Bank under the Common Cash Facility. As far as public records show, those questions have not been fully and publicly answered, leaving a real transparency gap alongside the programme's operational gains.

Read the full analysis: https://wfpusa.org/news/blockchain-tech-helps-refugees-grocery-shop-in-conflict-zones/