What is Digital Identity? – Digital ID explained

In essence, your Digital Identity is how people recognise you online.

As more and more of our day to day transactions take place online, Digital Identity will touch almost every aspect of our lives.

Never has this been more true than in recent weeks when worldwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic has meant that nearly all of our day to day activities – from work, shopping and banking to entertainment and communication with family and friends – are taking place online.

While Digital ID is still not widely in use around the world, the potential is there already. It can be used to access services including banking, establishing a company, healthcare, medical prescriptions, tax, travelling and voting. Any service that requires proof of ID has the potential to use Digital ID and companies and individuals are embracing Digital Identity here in New Zealand and around the world.

NEC New Zealand is just one of those companies working to bring a secure Digital Identity solution to businesses and individuals. Where our solutions differ from others in the market is our use of world-leading biometric technology including facial recognition, fingerprint/palm recognition and iris recognition as a way of securely accessing your Digital ID.

What is Digital Identity?

Wikipedia defines Digital Identity as, “information on an entity used by computer systems to represent an external agent. That agent may be a person, organization, application, or device.” It goes on to say, “The information contained in a digital identity allows for assessment and authentication of a user interacting with a business system on the web, without the involvement of human operators. Digital identities allow our access to computers and the services they provide to be automated, and make it possible for computers to mediate relationships.”

In more simple terms, a Digital Identity is a way of creating a seamless experience for accessing applications, systems and services that support the need for you to verify that you are who you say you are.

Benefits of Digital ID

The New Zealand government is also working towards the successful implementation of Digital ID here in New Zealand. They have identified the benefits for both individuals and for the country as a whole:

“Using a digital identity allows us to reliably prove information about us that lets us take part in society and access services such as banking, travel and healthcare.

Creating trusted digital information will help grow our economy, transform government services and ensure everyone has access to the tools and knowledge they need to take part in New Zealand’s future.”

Here at NEC New Zealand, our Digital Identity solutions take things further with the integration of biometric technology. The benefits of this approach include:

Enables organisations to develop new services

Biometrics solutions for Digital Identity enable organisations to develop new services and customer friendly applications for fast and accurate identification and verification which enables organisations and customers to balance the need for convenience with the need for security.

Reach new markets, automate business processes and acquire new customers

Biometrics solutions for Digital Identity make it easy and cheap for organisations to extend their digital presence and to reach new markets, automate business processes and acquire new customers. Our Digital Identity solutions enable organisations to move from traditional face-to-face contact to online channels. You can also save entry costs for new markets by reducing the need for human intervention thereby reducing customer acquisition costs.

Easy to implement and integrate into applications

Face recognition is the preferred biometric technology because it is easy to implement and integrate into applications. Our Digital Identity solutions encourage faster time to revenue, accelerating business growth by radically decreasing the time it takes to acquire and onboard customers.

Contactless, convenient, fast and accurate

Face recognition is contactless, hygienic, convenient, fast, and accurate. This can lead to increased customer conversion rates as fewer customers ‘drop out’.

Seeking to solve global problems

The creation of a Digital ID can help solve a number of problems that exist throughout the world. Identity fraud is one of the major issues that can be addressed using a Digital ID and whilst concerns still exist around the security of Digital ID platforms, technology is helping to play a role in ensuring secure Digital ID solutions.

CIO reported back in 2018 that there are over 1.1 billion people globally that have no formal identity – an issue that ID2020 seek to address. By utilising solutions that incorporate biometrics and blockchain, the project aims to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030.

The future of Digital ID

Here at NEC New Zealand, we are already working towards the future for Digital ID. Imagine a world where you didn’t have to carry cash, credit cards or a passport when you travel.

What if checking in for a flight or checking out at your favourite store was as simple as taking a selfie?

What if there was one technology that could make your hotel, banking and entertainment experiences safe and simple?

What if you could achieve all this without having to physically touch anything and risk the transmission of viruses or other pathogens.

Whilst this all seems like something out of a science fiction movie, the reality is that this future is here now, if you are ready to embrace your Digital ID.

NEC’s Digital ID is already delivering these solutions around the world. Check out the video below and take a peek at what the future and present might look like using Digital ID.