NADRA launches unified platform to standardize ID verification services

The National Database and Registration Authority of Pakistan (NADRA) has formally launched Nishan Pakistan (NP), “a unified digital platform designed to modernize and standardize identity verification services” across the country’s digital economy environment.

According to an announcement from NADRA, NP is a web-based portal that will enable government entities and other authorized private sector organizations to easily onboard their services and verify identities, replacing a hitherto fragmented and largely manual system.

Before the introduction of the unified gateway, government institutions and organizations went through long and cumbersome processes to onboard services, sometimes dealing with “lengthy documentation, repetitive approvals and siloed access mechanisms” which often led to costly delays.

The ID authority affirmed that the launch of NP is in line with its mandate and determination to streamline ID verification services and contribute to the growth of the Pakistan’s digital economy.

Nishan Pakistan aligns with the country’s Digital Economy Enhancement Program (DEEP) and is expected to significantly facilitate identity verification especially for public institutions managing social protection schemes and those delivering other essential public services that require identity verification. The country aims to see its digital economy contribute between 10 and 15 percent to its GDP by 2030, according to Daily Times.

NADRA says that through the newly launched platform, onboarded institutions and organizations can “securely access multi-biometric verification APIs (Fingerprint and Facial Recognition), Verisys (Demographic and identity verification services), Proof-of-Life API and Single Sign-On (SSO) for secure system access.”

With the system, these entities will be able to “verify customer identity information efficiently while ensuring purpose limitation, proportionality, and data minimization, as required under NADRA’s regulatory framework.”

Last month, NADRA launched a bug bounty challenge in a push to strengthen the country’s digital identity system security, and enhance the security of identity verification processes.

The concept of the challenge, which involves some of the country’s universities, is in partnership with the Higher Education Commission and the National Cyber Emergency Response Team.

Even before the bug bounty challenge, NADRA had upgraded the Pak ID app last year to include biometric login as a measure to strengthen digital ID security.

Article Topics

biometric liveness detection  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  ID verification  |  identity verification  |  NADRA  |  Nishan Pakistan  |  onboarding  |  Pakistan  |  Pakistan ID Stack  |  selfie biometrics