This week has brought new digital ID developments on a few different fronts, demonstrating the breadth of progress across countries that are engaging in different stages of the technology’s development.
First stop: the Caribbean. The Cayman Islands Parliament will begin deliberating over the establishment of a digital ID program in the country next month, with legislation that would establish a legal basis for the program having now been formally posted.
The ID system would be based on data held by the National Workforce Development Agency, and work on the project would be spearheaded by Ministry of Innovation’s eGovernment arm. The government is now accepting public comment on the proposed legislation.
In Australia, government officials are, it seems, a step or two behind the Caymanians. They’re only just starting to discuss a national digital ID program, in large part thanks to an enormous data breach of Australian telecom Optus.
The Chief Information Security Officer for the major bank ANZ was publicly backing the inchoate government plans to establish a national digital ID system this week. ANZ’s Lynne Connick asserted that there are “huge vulnerabilities” in Australia’s “national identity capability,” and called on government to play a leadership role “in a centralised identity plan or a centralised way of checking whether third parties are secure.”
And Korea, meanwhile, is way ahead. The South Korean mobile operators KT, SK Telecom, and LG Uplus began allowing users of the Pass mobile app to upload a virtual version of their resident registration ID card to the app this week. Users are now able to use the virtual document as official ID when checking in at domestic airports and as proof of age in stores and restaurants. It’s the result of an agreement established between the MNOs and the Ministry of Public Administration and Security in February.
While these countries are clearly at different stages of digital ID development, the progress they’ve shown this week speaks to the broader enthusiasm for digital ID technology around the world as the concept continues to be embraced in various domains.
Sources: Mobile World Live, Financial Review, Cayman News Service
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