Blockchain-powered system to help 1.1 billion people establish their legal identity
Accenture joins forces with Microsoft to create a prototype identity system to aid the vast number of the world’s undocumented population
Blockchain, the digital ledger technology behind cryptocurrency bitcoin, may hold the key to solving the thorny challenge of establishing the identities of more than 1.1 billion people around the world, according to experts.
Global management consulting group Accenture, in partnership with software giant Microsoft and professional services company Avanade, said it has developed an identity prototype based on blockchain technology, in response to a call to action at the United Nations-backed ID2020 Summit held in New York on Monday.
“Government and business leaders often talk about how technology can help us solve social problems – this is a concrete example,” Gianfranco Casati, the group chief executive for growth markets at Accenture, told the South China Morning Post.
“Approximately one-sixth of the world’s population cannot participate in cultural, political, economic and social life because they lack the most basic information: documented proof of their existence.”
Accenture and Microsoft are both founding alliance partners of ID2020, a global public-private partnership that was formed last year to help provide digital identity to everyone on the planet.
“By establishing identity, we can help more people gain access to education, health care, voting, banking, mobile communications, housing, and family and childcare benefits,” Casati said.