United Kingdom
The UK is one of the only developed economies not using a form of national ID card, research has shown.
Research for Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips found that of the 38 OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, just six – all predominantly English-speaking – do not have an ID scheme: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United States and the UK.
Debate over digital ID cards reignited recently, following the latest intervention by former prime minister Sir Tony Blair.
Blair’s Institute for Global Change estimates the scheme would cost £1 billion to launch and £100 million a year to maintain, but could save the Treasury £2 billion a year.
Pakistan
Pakistan is set to table a new bill aiming to create a digital identity for every citizen, according to reports.
The prospective legislation, as per the sources close to the framing of the Act, will provide seamless access to critical services ranging from birth certificates to health records.
The plan involves establishing two key bodies: a National Digital Commission, which will be headed by the prime minister and includes all four chief ministers, heads of major data-rich organisations like the State Bank, the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR), the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and a Pakistan Digital Authority which would be led by top industry experts.
Together, the commission and authority will develop a masterplan to serve as a blueprint for national digitisation.
Sector-specific digitisation masterplans will also be created, shared with relevant ministries, and made public to engage the private sector, which is expected to lead and benefit most from the digitisation agenda.
United States
Apple Wallet’s digital driver’s licence and state ID support has expanded to ten jurisdictions in the United States with the recent additions of New Mexico and Puerto Rico. The feature is now available in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, Ohio, and Puerto Rico. The expansion marks progress since Arizona became the first state to launch the programme in March 2022.
United States
New York State has launched a mobile digital ID programme designed to streamline age verification processes in bars and restaurants, The initiative, backed by the New York State Liquor Authority, uses a smartphone app that generates QR codes verified through encrypted Bluetooth technology, eliminating the need for physical ID handoffs or internet connectivity.
More than 160,000 New Yorkers have already adopted the mobile ID system, known as MiD, marking significant growth from the 100,000-user milestone reached earlier this year. The programme is voluntary for the state’s 59,000 liquor licence holders, with the Department of Motor Vehicles offering both free and paid versions of the verifier app to businesses. The technology was developed by IDEMIA, which has implemented similar solutions in several other states and ensures compliance with the ISO 18013-5 standard for mobile driving licences.
United States
Following two recent community hackathons co-hosted with the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), the OpenID Foundation is inviting more companies, government agencies and non-profits to collaborate in a similar way and drive adoption of privacy-preserving identity solutions.
The recent hackathons engaged a spectrum of public and private sector participants in order to expand the adoption and use cases of California’s mobile Driver’s License (mDL), which has incorporated the OpenID for Verifiable Credentials family of specifications into its architecture.
Europe
Anticipating the rise of digital wallets in the EU context, identity verification firm Signicat has introduced a new feature to its platform, allowing organisations to add their data to identity wallets.
“Signicat’s platform can issue data to any (EU) wallet and supports any mandated data format. We tested this during the Nordic-Baltic eID collaboration (NOBID) pilot, where we offered help to the Norwegian government by adding data from their national population and contact register to the NOBID wallet,” said the firm.
The NOBID wallet is among the EU Digital Wallet Consortium’s large-scale pilot projects being run as part of the larger European Digital Identity (EUDI) wallet programme.
Global
authID is expanding its services within the operations of the EinStrong Foundation, an organisation dedicated to “alleviating poverty and providing transparent and traceable support to underprivileged populations around the world.”
authID’s biometric authentication technology will help the EinStrong Foundation and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) achieve their social welfare goals and will ensure visibility and increased accountability to donation partners.
authID’s Verified solution authentication platform enables EinStrong and its donors to identify financial-disbursement recipients in 700 milliseconds. With authID’s technology, EinStrong’s ESi programme allows target recipients to uniquely and authenticate themselves without a need for ID or other forms of documentation.
