Platform for Billions Investigating Socio Technical Framework Of National Digital Identity Systems

Abstract

newline National Digital Identity Systems deal with provision of digital identity to residents of a country which are implemented at national level. For individuals, digital identity is defined as digital data which is obtained by digital conversion of human identity for private and public usage in diverse applications like digital verification, recognition, entitlement, and authentication purposes. National Digital identity, apart from being a foundational identity for residents of a country, also is used for purposes like financial inclusion, welfare, and subsidy disbursal etc. During recent Covid pandemic, digital identity was widely used for vaccination tracking and treatment purposes. Due to such wide-ranging utility of digital identity, nations strive to provide digital identity to residents for both private and public purposes. Despite recommendation made as part of United Nation Sustainable Development Goals1 (SDG, 2016), only 26 % countries are having comprehensive digital systems installed to provide identity to general population. Approximately 48 countries are at different stages of implementing digital identity projects2. Even amongst these, however, results achieved have been underwhelming. National digital identity systems implemented as standalone system have not been very successful.