In poor countries, digital identity as a solution against exclusion

One billion ! A billion people in the world, half of them in Africa, have no identity. In other words, nearly one in eight humans is outside the formal economy, does not have access to health, education, cannot open a bank account, change country, vote or access aid. and services provided by its State.

“Among them, there are those who erase their identity to migrate or minors whose identity is removed if they have one to sell them in marriage or for work. But it is a minority. In underdeveloped countries, the non-existence of an identity poses many problems, and the pandemic has further accentuated the inequalities between those who have an identity and those who do not, because the latter did not have one. access to aid, care… ”, regrets Joseph Atick, CEO of ID4Africa.

This non-governmental organization (NGO), which he created in 2014, has set itself the task of helping African countries to “Adopt digital identity responsibly and for the common good”.

Article reserved for our subscribers Read also Biometrics, QR code, holograms… On the Internet, passwords will soon be forgotten

A researcher in mathematics at Stanford and Princeton, Joseph Atick very early on devoted himself to the development of algorithms for biometrics. “Our idea was to link an identifier to biometrics – fingerprints at the time – because facial recognition was not yet precise enough. We wanted to develop an interoperable secure identity to facilitate population movements in a world without borders, a kind of global pass. Until September 11, 2001, we were idealists ”, he admits. Today, biometrics and, in particular, facial recognition have proven their viability and effectiveness in terms of identification and authentication. “It is also a way of securing identity despite whoever wears it, that is to say by avoiding phony passwords that are easy to break”, adds Joseph Atick.

Safety, reliability and good practices

The Indian Aadhaar project marks an important step in this area. At the end of the 2000s, in order to charge more taxes and put an end to multiple or non-existent identities, due to a lack of civil status registers, the Indian government launched the project for the digital identification of its population based on biometrics. . It also gives him the opportunity to take a census. Each citizen is identified by a 12-digit number, their fingerprints, photos of their irises and face, as well as their names, sex, date and place of birth. This information is recorded in a massive database, which makes Aadhaar the largest national identification project to date, with 1.3 billion people registered. However, the project is controversial, the security of access as the reliability of the data provided by the people themselves are questioned by some observers. Beyond these criticisms, “Aadhaar has promoted financial inclusion: as an indication, India recorded the creation of 200 million new bank accounts after the deployment of the digital identifier”, specifies Joseph Atick.

You have 20.81% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.