Half a billion will regularly use digital identity wallets within 2 years: Gartner

Digital identity wallets are in the process of taking off, with 500 million smartphone users regularly using them by 2026, according to research from Gartner.

The market analysis firm suggests that portable digital identity (PDI) is emerging as an alternative to the challenge of traditional identity verification.

“The market is entering a transition period as PDI solutions are starting to mature, which in the next five years, will reduce the demand for standalone IDV,” said Akif Khan, VP Analyst at Gartner, speaking at the company’s Security & Risk Management Summit in London.

Part of the reason for this is that portable digital identities are better-suited to proving a wider range of claims, such as of qualifications or employment, than scanning an ID document and selfie biometrics. The announcement also notes the value of verifiable credentials for privacy-preserving proof of age and other attributes.

Market demand is being filled by private sector vendors, Gartner notes, but also government action, with the EU mandating the issuance of digital identity wallets by 2026. The EU began the process of establishing a cybersecurity certification scheme for digital identity wallets this week.

Khan encourages organizations to proactively adopt digital identity wallets in the announcement.

“For example, in the workforce, CISOs can use a readily available decentralized identity wallet product and issue it to their employees. The wallet could then be integrated into their employee onboarding, account recovery and IT help desk workflows. This is ultimately improving security by introducing strong authentication and improving UX by removing the need for repeated IDV.”

Goode Intelligence forecasted a year ago that 1.5 billion people will use digital identity wallets by 2029.

Juniper Research says digital wallets will be used to make transactions worth a total of $10 trillion in 2024. That figure will rise to $17 trillion in 2029, according to the “Global Digital Wallets Market: 2024-2029” report. The report focusses on the use of digital wallets for payments, rather than digital ID.

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digital identity  |  digital wallets  |  Gartner  |  Juniper Research  |  market report  |  portable digital identity  |  reusable digital ID