Global
Mastercard and Microsoft says they are to combining technologies to combat digital fraud. Mastercard’s Digital Transaction Insights will include Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help financial institutions and credit issuers better detect fraud while approving genuine transactions.
According to the press release, the goal of the partnership is to facilitate safe and frictionless online transactions for consumers and business owners. The technology can better defend against fraudsters who get hold of consumer information and use it to dispute legitimate transactions. According to Mastercard, it’s a form of digital fraud that’s becoming more prevalent.
UAE
The UAE says it is making strides in building a single digital identity platform for residents and citizens to securely obtain access to government and private sector services online.
More than two million people have been registered for the UAE Pass, representing more than a fifth of the population. The digital ID scheme was launched in October 2018.
The UAE Central Bank approved its use for remote banking across the country and Western Union and Al Fardan Exchange were among the first to integrate UAE Pass for sending and receiving money online.
United States
Seattle-based Indicio has secured $3.5 million from a fundraiser led by investment company Hard Yaka, to advance the adoption of its decentralized digital ID technology across industry verticals with steady focus on the finance, healthcare and travel sectors.
Since its creation in 2020, Indicio has developed software for companies to issue, share, and verify data through an ecosystem of encrypted digital credentials, enabling it to confirm the origin and authenticity of any kind of data repeatedly and efficiently without the expense or risk of direct integrations.
CEO Heather Dahl says the funds will help Indicio jump-start and clear certain market hurdles: “We nurtured an Indicio community of forward-thinking companies around the technology. Now we get to the exciting part – to scale, to solve more complex use cases, to create new, market-catalyzing features and products, and to provide the tools, training, and support to nurture and sustain a rapidly growing movement around trusted data and verifiable digital interaction.”
Uganda
A coalition of civil society organizations in Uganda have filed a lawsuit against the government alleging that the national digital ID system, commonly known as Ndaga Muntu, has become an exclusionary barrier that violates women’s rights to health care and older persons’ right to social security.
Ndaga Muntu is compulsory for accessing government services, and by being so is threatening lives as many people – a third of the population – have been unable to register, have errors in their files or have not received their National Identity Cards, say the organizations.
The civil society organisations are being led by three which filed the case at the High Court on 25 April 2022: the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), Unwanted Witness (UW), and the Health Equity and Policy Initiative (HEAPI). They are seeking to compel the government to accept alternative forms of identification for accessing healthcare and Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) benefits for older persons.
Morocco
Moroccans can now access administrative services and personal documents online, by providing proof of identity through their National Electronic Identity Card (CNIE).
The new service allows various public and private institutions in Morocco to verify the identities of individuals wishing to access their online services.
The Digital Development Agency (ADD) launched the Identification and authentication services for digital services users, in partnership with Morocco’s General Directorate of National Security (DGSN).
The solution is based on DGNS’s ‘Trusted Third Party’ platform. It shares the users’ exact personal data from their identity cards with the companies in complete security, according to DGNS.
The platform should confirm the identity of the user and share it with the service provider while ensuring the protection of the user’s personal information and reducing the risk of identity fraud.
In addition, the new solution uses multi-factor authentication (MFA), a strong authentication and security process that requires at least two validation factors to prove the user’s identity.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia is accepting bids to supply and install biometric registration kits for use in the establishment of the country’s national digital ID programme.
The second tender from Ministry of Innovation and Technology’s Ethiopian Digital Foundations Project (EDFP) follows a contract opportunity for a total of 315 biometric registration kits announced just weeks ago.
The newly-announced contract opportunity, for ‘The Supply, Delivery and Installation of Biometric Registration Kits for National ID Program,’ specifies a need for 75 fingerprint biometric scanners, 75 iris scanners, and 75 cameras for capturing facial images, as well as 75 portable document scanners. It also includes carrying cases, batteries, computing devices (which may include laptops or tablets), backdrop screens for capturing facial photographs, and portable monochrome printers. Unlike the previous tender, the latest bid is for a single lot, so all items requested must be included for a bid to be considered.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is on the verge of issuing digital identity cards, Secretary to the Ministry of Technology and Chairman of the Director General of Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) Jayantha de Silva said.
“Base work is mostly completed. We will be incorporating ten fingerprints, iris and face recognition soon, De Silva told the Digital Lanka, Green Tech, Huawei Digital Congress 2022 last week.
France
France has announced a new system for proving digital identity via a smartphone, while formally discontinuing the Alicem app of 2019.
Called “Service de garantie de l’identité numérique” (SGIN) (“Digital Identity Guarantee Service”), the system for automating the processing of personal information is jointly authorized by the Minister of the Interior (General Secretariat) and the National Agency for Secure Documents (ANTS).
The app element serves as a smartphone extension of their electronic Carte Nationale d’Identité (CNIe). The app will authenticate a person’s identity for accessing both public and private-sector services and use the smartphone’s NFC reader to scan users’ biometric identity cards.
The official announcement describes the details of the new app. SGIN will be based on the biographic data held in the new French ID cards launched in August 2021. It will only work with the new credit card-sized CNIe with embedded chip, rather than the previous CNI.
