Madagascar strengthens trust architecture for national digital ID

Madagascar is strengthening the legal, institutional and technical foundations of its national digital identity program, introducing new cybercrime legislation as enrollment rapidly expands.

The government has submitted two cybercrime-related bills to parliament that would modernize the country’s national cybercrime framework and to authorize ratification of the UN Convention against Cybercrime, known as the Hanoi Convention.

The draft texts were approved by the Council of Ministers and presented to parliament on August 28.

Authorities say the main objective of this reform is to make security and trust the foundation of Madagascar’s digital infrastructure architecture, given that other critical elements have to be built around a national ID system once enrollment reaches scale.

Among other things, the national framework addresses issues including cyberattacks on computer systems, online fraud, and identity theft. It also proposes the creation of a Digital Protection and Investigation Unit (UPIN) to improve how cyber threats are detected and investigated. The ratification of the Hanoi Convention would provide the international layer the country needs to better investigate cybercrime, which often involves actors in different jurisdictions.

Digital transformation in Madagascar is at full throttle, with the country’s national digital ID program at the forefront of these efforts. Considered one of the fastest-growing ID schemes on the continent, the program was praised for enrolling more than two million citizens in two months, thanks to a last-mile strategy that involved deploying agile mobile teams to reach citizens in hard-to-access areas. The enrollment has also been accelerated by an AI-powered initiative that digitized over 10 million civil registration records, led by Studia Inc.

As of June, authorities said more than six million people had been enrolled for the biometric ID scheme. The overall goal is to issue a digital ID to 12 million citizens and reach a production threshold of 100,000 cards daily.

The move to strengthen the legal framework and enhance digital security and trust comes as the Malagasy government advances implementation of the Digital Governance and Identification Management System Project (PRODIGY), funded by the World Bank to the tune of $143 million.

Authorities say the main focus is to move from enrolling citizens for the digital ID to creating an environment in which the tool can be used at scale to facilitate public and private sector service delivery. The goal is to ensure that digital IDs are not just issued but are effectively used to access services and improve people’s lives.

As Madagascar expands digital identity and digital government under PRODIGY, cybersecurity is becoming a prerequisite for trusted digital services rather than a parallel policy objective.

Without a robust cybersecurity framework and international cooperation mechanisms to support crime detection and investigation, a digital identity system of the scale Madagascar is building could become a target.

Malagasy government officials say this reform will also go a long way in enhancing digital sovereignty. With digital public infrastructure now considered critical information infrastructure (CII), experts believe countries must adopt sovereign cyber defense systems not only to protect their systems, but also to boost their trustworthiness.

Article Topics

Africa  |  cybersecurity  |  digital ID infrastructure  |  Madagascar  |  Prodigy (Madagascar)