International Identity Day 2024 is being officially observed in dozens of countries around the world, and recognized by individuals and groups in nearly every nation. Progress towards the universal issuance of legal ID has continued over the past year, but familiar difficulties and setbacks make the mission as relevant as ever.
The day is observed on September 16 in recognition of United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 16.9, which is to issue legal identity, including birth registration, to all people around the world by 2030.
ID4Africa and the coalition of partners behind Identity Day has chosen “Celebrating the right to be visible” as the theme for 2024, and published resources providing a practical guide to observing and celebrating the day, and “Principles on Identification for Sustainable Development.”
There were still 850 million people around the world with no way of proving their identity when the World Bank’s ID4D Global Dataset (2021) was published. Roughly 540 million of them were in Africa.
These figures have surely changed significantly since then, but determining the extent of the progress made is difficult.
At least as important as the provision of some kind of legal identity is the quality and usefulness of the credential provided. Substantial progress has also been made on this front over the past year, with
The day has also been recognized by a wide range of organizations around the world.
The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) acknowledged the importance of legal identity, and the role digital identity and biometrics play in it, in an opinion piece. The article also warns of the risks of discrimination and difficulty accessing services that are associated with poor implementation of identity systems.
World Privacy Forum Founder and ED Pam Dixon writes that ID Day is a good opportunity to reflect on how identity systems can be repurposed, and how to ensure that legal identity cannot be repurposed in a harmful way.
Ethiopian government authorities joined representatives of international organizations for a virtual meeting on inclusive identity policy, ENA reports.
ID4Africa Executive Chairman Dr. Joseph Atick says ID Day 2024 is being celebrated in nearly 30 nations across Africa. He reiterated his call for official global recognition of identity day “as a symbol of hope, dignity and inclusion.”
Biometric birth registration
Civil registration programs are increasingly connecting to healthcare systems to enroll children early.
National birth registration programs have been launched or accelerated over the past year in countries including Nigeria, Cameroon and Papua New Guinea, but the issue also effects higher-income countries, and is receiving attention in Australia and elsewhere.
Brazil kicked off a conference on identity on Monday, coinciding with ID Day, which is expected to further a national push for biometric birth registration, in part to combat a plague of infant abduction. The country is working with hospitals and biometric technology developers to enable infant fingerprint collection. NEC suggested last year that it’s infant biometrics work was shifting towards registration for legal ID, and Steve Saggese of Synolo told Biometric Update at Identity Week last week that it will be at the conference in Brazil, where it is gaining traction towards both deployment and manufacturing deals.
National ID program gains
The number of national ID programs running around the world increased again in 2024, but most of the progress appears to be made, in terms of raw registration numbers, among countries further along in the process.
Nigeria is up to 110 million registered for its national identity system, Punch reports. The country was just over 100 million people a year ago.
Ethiopia is nearing 10 million people registered for its Fayda national digital ID, according to a Facebook post. The program was in its infancy a year ago, with close to 1.5 million registered by Identity Day 2023. National authorities are also in the midst of ramping up their registration drive.
The Philippines publishes registration statistics regularly, which show a gain of 6.4 million during 2024, and roughly 7 million since last ID Day, to reach 89.5 million.
A gain of over 25 million people from two of Africa’s most populous countries and one of Asia’s over the past year indicates the pace of progress in those countries that are actively working on national ID systems.
The next ID4D dataset will likely show a major reduction in the number of legally invisible people around the world, but time is running out to meet the 2030 goal.
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