Ghana plans digital version of national ID card to simplify authentication

The producers of Ghana’s national ID card, known as the Ghana Card, have announced that a complementary digital version of the identity credential will be rolled out next year.

The CEO of Margins ID Group, Moses Baiden, said in a recent interview with tech publication TechFocus24 that the digital version will have all the features and functionalities of the physical card, and the users’ details will be contained in a chip imbedded in their devices through a mobile application.

The digital ID on an app will also be produced by Margins ID Group, which currently provides NFC readers to read all Ghana Cards be it online or offline.

This, Baiden said, will make identity verification and authentication possible and even easier in circumstances where a Ghana Card owner doesn’t have their physical card either because they forget to take it along or because it is lost or damaged.

According to Baiden, the digital version of the Ghana Card will not replace the physical card because he believes, Ghana as a developing nation, doesn’t yet have all the requisite infrastructure to verify digital ID everywhere in the country.

The official opined that because the rate of mobile phone penetration in Ghana is on an upward trajectory, “the digital ID can be a good addition to the physical Ghana Card but we are not yet at the stage where we can discard the physical card and go completely digital.”

Baiden also noted that one other important digital feature (an application for digital payments), which is currently dormant in the physical version of the Ghana Card, will also be activated next year. He said the feature is among about 18 others on the ID card which have not yet been activated because the needed legislative framework is still absent.

The Margins ID Group official also looked back to when the Ghanaian government spent huge sums of money to a foreign contractor to deliver a national ID card system “that does not work,” noting that for an ID system to be successful, the ID provider must derive sources of funding. Pakistan’s NADRA, Nigeria’s NIMC and India’s UIDAI have some lessons on sustainable financing for digital ID schemes.

Baiden disclosed that for over a decade now, Margins ID has pre-financed ID card production in Ghana, although there have also been reports of unpaid debts. With the Ghana Card, he claimed the state of Ghana has saved about $1.5 billion, which is money that would have been used by state institutions to collect data to enable access to government services.

He believes that the Ghana Card has the potential of making huge contributions to Ghana’s development economy by facilitating access to a wide range of services, given that use cases for the ID keep expanding. Recently, the country’s Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia said there are plans to anchor a car loans scheme on the Ghana Card.

Article Topics

Africa  |  digital ID  |  Ghana  |  Ghana Card  |  Margins ID Group  |  national ID