Microsoft And Accenture Develop Blockchain ID System For Refugees

Accenture and Microsoft have developed a prototype digital identity using blockchain technology as part of a humanitarian project to provide legal identification to more than 1.1 billion people worldwide, including 7 million refugees, by 2020.

The prototype - unveiled this week at the second summit of ID2020, a public-private consortium that promotes the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of providing legal identification for each - combines a person's biometric information such as their footprint Digital or retinal scan with blockchain, the recording technology that supports cryptocurrences, to create a legal identity.

When operational, the tool will provide refugees with the ability to present their IDs through an application on their smartphones at border crossings to demonstrate that they come from a refugee camp and qualify for assistance.

The application will also enable displaced persons to share their identities when necessary to access basic services such as education and health care.

"Approximately one-sixth of the world's population can not participate in cultural, political, economic and social life because it lacks the most basic information - documented evidence of its existence," Accenture said in an announcement.

"Establishing identity is critical to accessing a wide range of activities, including education, medical care, voting, banking, mobile communications, housing, and family and child care benefits."

The prototype does not store personally identifiable information in a centralized system; Rather, it interacts with the existing identity systems of commercial and public entities, so that this information is always "out of chain".

The prototype takes advantage of off-chain systems when individuals give access to their data, dispelling concerns about the system accessed by tyrannical governments from which refugees often flee.

"Our prototype is personal, private and portable, enabling individuals to access and share appropriate information when appropriate, and without the concern of using or losing paper documentation," said David Treat, Accenture's CEO.

The system is designed so that the person who owns the identity is the only one that can grant access to it; Personally identifiable information can not be stored or sent by third parties.

The prototype was built on Accenture's Unique Identity Services Platform, which powers the biometric identity management system used by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and runs on the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform .

Accenture and Microsoft - who were among more than two dozen entities that formed an alliance to use Ethereum's block code in February this year - also collaborated on the prototype with Avanade managed service provider and are looking for other companies to join To your project.

At ID2020 last year, Microsoft, Blockstack Labs and ConsenSys unveiled their block-based identity system that will enable "people, products, applications and services to interact through lock chains, cloud providers and organizations" across the globe. the world. The system was built to combat crimes against human rights that focus on the lack of legal identification, such as trafficking, prostitution and child abuse.

It has also been proposed that blockchain will play a role in addressing the security dilemma associated with the proliferation of Internet Technology of Things (IoT); For example, Australian telstra company Telstra revealed that it was experimenting with a combination of blocking and biometric security for its IOT smart home offers, with the company's chief security expert saying that using blockchain makes security through Of IoT devices is much more efficient and cost-effective for organizations.