Cybernetica, Tony Blair Institute pilot digital credential wallet in Kenya

A proof-of-concept to implement a verifiable credentials (VC) system to fight a growing wave of academic and public service recruitment fraud in Kenya has been completed.

Estonian IT firm Cybernetica facilitated the pilot in collaboration with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), according to a recent announcement. The implementation of the initiative had been in the works for some time with the government holding stakeholder consultations on how to go about it.

The initiative is a wallet-based digital credential system aimed at managing education degrees in Kenya, and the country’s Public Service Commission is involved in the project. It follows the W3C Digital Wallet and Verifiable Credential Model, and it is meant to be interoperable with other systems.
There’s been a major problem with public service recruitments in Kenya. A recent audit revealed that more than 2,000 academic and professional certificates for a public service recruitment drive were fake.

For such recruitments which are largely merit-based, credential fraud not only taints trust, it also offers an underserved recruitment advantage.
To solve the problem, the Kenyan government is looking to put in place a digital wallet to store, verify and share academic VCs which can be authenticated instantly. It will also allow academic or professional training institutions to issue their certificates as “cryptographically backed verifiable credentials.”

The system, which shall be decentralized, ensures “there is no single database of credentials vulnerable to theft or hacking, significantly reducing security risks.”

Commenting on the project, the head of Digital Identity Technologies at Cybernetica, Sven Heiberg, said: “The Kenyan Wallet project has been a valuable journey for Cybernetica. We’re proud to have delivered a secure, modern solution for education degree certificates with TBI. This experience has strengthened our confidence in wallet technologies and their potential. We look forward to expanding use cases and scaling across borders.”

Cybernetica said all aspects of the pilot were successful, and comments from those who used it were “overwhelmingly positive” with some expressing the wish to have the system extended for the authentication of other professional certificates, digital IDs and driver’s licenses.

The academic VC wallet is part of Kenya’s digital transformation, and it is said to align with the country’s Trust Framework and Trust Registry. The country has funding support from Cybernetica’s home country Estonia for digital government projects.

Article Topics

Cybernetica  |  digital wallet  |  fraud prevention  |  Kenya  |  pilot project  |  Tony Blair Institute  |  verifiable credentials  |  W3C standards