2018: A year in review – Looking forward to collaborating in 2019

Dear colleagues,

We’re looking forward to collaborating closely with our colleagues and partners in 2019 to create a more secure world where legal, trusted identity empowers citizens to access services and exercise their rights.

Last year marked some significant milestones in the journey to enabling governments to provide reliably verified and authenticated official identities that allow citizens to participate in social, economic, political and cultural life.

However, despite significant progress, one billion people around the globe are still unable to prove their identity – and as a result are unable to access health, social protection and education programs, or even open a bank account.

In 2018, we worked closely with a number of public, private and non-government organizations to foster international collaboration on the issues of legal identity and help shaping policy.

We also worked tirelessly to further the adoption of robust legal and technical frameworks that enable governments to build ‘privacy by design’ into their digital identity ecosystems to better protect citizens and give them greater control over their personal data.

If you missed them, here are just a few of our highlights from 2018:

• Open Source API published on GitHub

  In September, the SIA published its Open Source API on Github, which for the first time enables technical interoperability between civil registries and identity systems. This landmark initiative represents a major step towards reducing the costs of establishing and maintaining national identity systems – enabling otherwise non-compatible ID systems to ‘talk to one another’. Something that will enable governments to maximize the value of their existing infrastructure and invest in new solutions without fear of integration problems or single vendor dependency or ‘lock in’.

• World Bank ID4D Initiative

  The SIA was happy to contribute to the World Bank’s ID4D Catalog of Technical Standards for Digital Identification Systems, which serves as a reference and guide for all stakeholders involved with digital identification systems. This includes details of the technical standards required to assure the security and quality of robust ID systems that are both scalable and interoperable.

• New eDocuments evaluation tools 

  Last year we released version 3 of eSAM, a unique self-assessment tool that enables public sector organizations to evaluate the integrity of their e-document issuance programs : https://secureidentityalliance.org/sia-tools/esam

  We also launched a new free tool – the eSEC – on our website which enables issuers and manufacturers to benchmark and verify the security features and risk profiles of different document types – making it possible to evaluate if the security measures in place are appropriate and viable for the intended lifetime of the document : https://secureidentityalliance.org/sia-tools/esec

  The eSEC tool supports the development of a ‘common criteria’ approach for the development of security features for passports, identity cards, driving licenses and similar identity-based eDocuments. To access these convenient and easy-to-use tools, simply go to www.secureidentityalliance.org.

• World Economic Forum Collaboration

  Last year the SIA contributed to the WEF’s Identity in a Digital World: A New Chapter in the Social Contract report and joined the WEF Platform for Good Identity, an initiative that is dedicated to enabling digital ID solutions that are trustworthy, safe and sustainable.

• eBorders

  In 2018 we published a new edition of our Strong Identity, Strong Borders advisory paper, which provides best practice guidance for developing a cohesive eBorder strategy. It is also now available in French.

• ​eHealth

  In partnership with COCIR (European coordination Committee of the Radiological, Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry), we published Identity in Healthcare – A Key Enabler to Integrated Care, which provides key insights and recommendations on how to address the ID and security challenges facing the health sector, especially in relation to compliance with GDPR requirements.

Secure Identity Alliance