Before Building New ID Numbering Systems, Let’s Use What We Have

In the identity management field, innovation often comes with a sense of urgency. You identify an opportunity, work up a proposal, attend meetings, submit your bid and then (hopefully) Go! Go! Go! At this point, you already have the solution so well worked out with colleagues (and written into an annexe of the contract) that you don’t have time to reconsider what is already in place in the country’s identity framework.

Too often, it seems, governments and technology providers rush to design new identity databases or unique identifier schemes, without fully considering the value of the existing infrastructure. The creation of parallel systems not only introduces duplication and added cost, but also heightens privacy risks and public resistance – especially when legacy tools, however imperfect, already serve a similar function.