500 mn smartphone owners to use digital identity wallet by 2026

New Delhi, Sep 24: At least 500 million smartphone users globally will regularly make verifiable claims using a digital identity wallet (DIW) by 2026, a report said on Tuesday.

Identity verification establishes confidence in the identity of a person during a digital interaction when curated credentials do not exist, are not available or do not provide sufficient assurance.

However, due to challenges with the traditional IDV model, solutions based on portable digital identity (PDI) have emerged, according to a Gartner report.

“The market is entering a transition period as PDI solutions are starting to mature, which in the next five years, will reduce the demand for standalone IDV,” said Akif Khan, VP Analyst at Gartner.

The current IDV model of a user being asked to do the ID-plus-selfie process repeatedly, is not ideal.

Khan said that the processes in place today are focused and limited to core identity data (name, date of birth, address etc.).

As more and more processes move online, there is a need to tie many other attributes to a user’s identity, such as educational or workplace qualifications, proof of employment, not to mention healthcare data, Khan noted.

A PDI is best defined as a digital identity that contains all the necessary attributes for identifying someone in the digital world. PDI also means that the user maintains some level of control over security and privacy.

According to the Gartner report, the principle of PDI is that the user formerly proves their identity with a trusted entity, and once authenticated, it is recorded as an identity assertion.

That identity assertation is either stored with the party that verified their identity (centralized model) or saved in a DIW on their smartphone (decentralised model).

The European Commission will also require all EU member states to make a DIW available to citizens by 2026.