From a country with no connectivity until 1999, Bhutan has driven digital transformation welcoming the first decentralized identity model, which separates them from the rest of the world.
The National Digital Identity Project of Bhutan has asserted their rollout of decentralized digital ID, which Pallavi Sharma (NDI Bhutan) spoke about in October at Identity Week Asia.
Expanding use cases and overcoming the difficulty of onboarding citizens in landlocked, rugged terrains, we were happy to hear their digital development to oversee inclusion, future proof KYC processes, trust and security, and the need for an integrated digital service. Individuals own their data and only share necessary data with service providers.
As Sharma mentions, they have forged partnerships with the Department of Homeland Security and Canada, delivered an off-shelf identity platform to Papa Guinea and worked with Digi Yatra issuing identifiable credentials to each other’s wallets.
The Bhutan NDI Team has welcomed a world-recognised wallet rivalling European prototypes across other national ID ecosystems, delivering a biometrically enabled edge mega wallet, secure signing, seamless currency, verifiable credential storage and the issuance of verifiable credentials.
In this interview, we asked:
- You’ve made great strides to becoming a technologically developing country. How is the Kingdom of Bhutan perceived within the global ID/digital ecosystem?
- Is Bhutan’s Digital Trust Ecosystem being imitated across other national ID ecosystems?
- In what ways has Bhutan’s NDI succeeded?
- Does Bhutan’s wallet mirror European wallets and digital verifiable credentials? Are you basing the wallet on European examples i.e. eIDAS? Do all credentials within Bhutan’s wallet hold legal validity through the Digital Identity Act?
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