Public service digital identity projects unveiled by Gradiant, ICI Bucharest and selfd.id

Research and technology organization Gradiant has announced a new European alliance to facilitate online procedures in public services through the use of digital identity tools.

Dubbed IMPULSE (Identity Management in PUbLic SErvices), the alliance will count 16 partners from nine different countries and will deploy artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies to improve online identification processes.

With a budget of roughly four million euros (roughly US$4.9 million) provided as part of the Horizon 2020 program, IMPULSE’s goal will be to facilitate the digitalization of the European public sector.

The collaborating entities will work towards this goal by developing an all-encompassing tool capable of meeting all the ethical and legal requirements of all countries in the European Union.

The necessity of creating a single framework for digital identity comes from the fact that, while most EU citizens are already in possession of an electronic identity card capable of providing online authentication, these tools are often not user-friendly, according to the IMPULSE team.

To facilitate these processes, the new tool will incorporate advanced face biometrics and document validation techniques based on AI.

Under the hood, the new platform will leverage blockchain technology and the use of smart contracts to make the process more trustworthy.

Selfd.id and ICI Bucharest announce digital identity partnership

Romania-based digital identity firm selfd.id and the National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics (ICI) have announced a new partnership on Tuesday.

As part of the new collaboration, the institutions will work to accelerate the digitization of the national public system in the country.

This will translate to the creation and adoption of a secure electronic public identification (e-ID) system to allow alignment with European requirements.

Through selfd.id’s decentralized digital identity platform, which launched in December last year, individuals’ interaction with government institutions will be facilitated, and users allowed to verify a wide range of credentials.

These will include personal data, professional certifications, employee certificates, as well as vaccination certificates, or COVID-19 test results.

“The integrated digital identity technology adoption by state institutions is an important step in the process of digitizing the public system as it contributes to the development of a simplified and more efficient interaction with the general public, in a secured digital environment,” observes selfd.id Co-founder and CEO Radu Chirilă. “We are pleased to provide the authorities with a technological tool that is easy to access and extremely useful, in the benefit of Romanian citizens.”

Article Topics

biometrics  |  credentials  |  data protection  |  digital identity  |  eID  |  Europe  |  facial recognition  |  government services  |  Gradiant  |  privacy  |  Romania  |  Selfd.id