Kelly Robertson
The ID2020 Alliance is one of those projects that aim to put blockchain to good use. This public-private partnership aims to improve lives through digital identity, bringing together development organizations, private sector companies, governments and NGOs to implement high-impact digital identity programs, along with a clear governance model.
Under the deal, the Alliance partners would work together to define technical requirements, ensuring that the technologies developed are interoperable and responsive to the needs of both individuals and institutions, and to prioritize and structure pilot projects for scale, impact, and replicability.
ID2020 is committed to developing digital identity solutions that are personal, private, persistent and portable. The Alliance is building a blockchain-based solution with focus on user-control and privacy, giving individuals direct ownership of, and control over, their personal information.
Accenture is one of the founding member of the initiative, and has put $1 million for the development of ID2020’s systems, and something similar came from the Rockefeller Foundation. Now we have…
New members joining the ID2020 Alliance
Among the new “entrants” to the ID2020 initiative are Microsoft, Mercy Corps, Hyperledger and the UN International Computing Center, with Microsoft also agreeing to donate $1 million to the effort.
With more money and powerful partners, one would think that ID2020 wants to replace existing identity management systems including forms of legal identification issued by a government; that’s not the case — it wants to complement them. The digital identity provides a backbone to which any sort of credentials, including state-issued ones, can be associated, allowing a seamless authentication process for individuals and simplified interoperability for institutions.
Last summer, Accenture and Microsoft unveiled a blockchain-based digital identity prototype for the ID2020 Alliance at the ID2020 Summit held at the United Nations in New York. And now, the organization is establishing a Technical Advisory Committee to evaluate emerging and relevant technologies on an ongoing basis.
Focus on refugees
According to World Bank, there are more than 1.1 billion people — disproportionately women, children, and refugees — who are unable to prove their identity and therefore struggle to access critical services and benefits. They may be denied a spot in school or turned away from the polls, may struggle to relocate or travel, and are more likely to be trafficked.
With digital IDs, this group of people would be able to access essential health and social services, apply for jobs, open mobile money accounts in their own name, and buy what they need most for themselves and their families.
“According to research, refugees displaced for six months are highly likely to be displaced for a minimum of three years and average of 17,” Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps, said in a statement. “That’s why Mercy Corps is committed to alliances like ID2020 and partnerships with national governments, the United Nations and the private sector to ensure people have safe access to a personal identity.”
In today’s connected world, digital identity offers an opportunity to provide streamlined access to services, both for individuals and governments.
“Decentralized, user-controlled digital identity holds the potential to unlock economic opportunity for refugees and others who are disadvantaged, while concurrently improving the lives of those simply trying to navigate cyberspace securely and privately,” noted David Treat, managing director and co-head of the global blockchain practice at Accenture.
Mary Snapp, Corporate Vice President and Lead for Microsoft Philanthropies, shares this sentiment, adding that they [Microsoft] tare “committed to leveraging our technology and expertise to continue to bring digital identities — and the basic rights, services and opportunities they enable — to those who need it most.”
The ID2020 Alliance is also focused on the non-technical elements of bringing secure digital identity to scale. Its transparent, multi-stakeholder governance model is said to be unique among initiatives focused on digital identity — partner organizations jointly manage a pooled fund, used to implement pilot projects, and work jointly to develop user-centric technical requirements and data privacy standards. In the coming year, the group plans to launch pilots focusing on refugee populations and childhood immunization.
“ID2020 grew out of a recognition that historical, siloed approaches to solve this problem were insufficient,” Dakota Gruener, the Executive Director of the ID2020 Alliance, said in a statement. “We are building an ecosystem of partners committed to working across national and institutional borders to address this challenge at scale.”
Partnership in the ID2020 Alliance is open, with an inclusive structure that allows the participation of organizations of varying sizes and backgrounds.
Not the only blockchain digital identity service out there
Another notable example includes CIVIC, which is trying to do the same thing, allowing people to protect and authorize the use of their identity in real-time, and which runs on Ethereum’s blockchain. Its goal is to introduce on-demand, secure and low-cost access to Identity Verification Services (IDV) via blockchain, such that background and personal information verification checks will no longer need to be undertaken from the ground up every time.
The service makes sure that every time someone requires to confirm your identity, a CIVIC-enabled service could kick-in to smoothen the process — so you don’t have to undergo the same verification and document submission process from the scratch. Said service integrating with CIVIC would ask for your CIVIC ID, which would assure the service provider that you really are – you.
That is the basic premise of CIVIC, but its use cases extend to other services, as we have discussed in another article. Which we encourage you to read now. 😉
