The ID2020 Alliance has launched a new digital identity program at its annual summit in New York, in collaboration with the Government of Bangladesh, vaccine alliance Gavi, and new partners in government, academia, and humanitarian relief.
The program to leverage immunization as an opportunity to establish digital identity was unveiled by ID2020 in partnership with the Bangladesh Government’s Access to Information (a2i) Program, the Directorate General of Health Services, and Gavi, according to the announcement.
Digital identity is a computerized record of who a person is, stored in a registry. It is used, in this case, to keep track of who has received vaccination.

[i]Who we are, where we’re headed and what this all looks like on the “other side” of the pandemic are topics on everyone’s mind right now.

[b]So are vaccines.

So is online shopping, with urgency.

All of these subjects share a commonality: IDs. In commerce, knowing (and verifying) who’s on the other side of a transaction can mean the difference between a retailer making a sale to a loyal customer or a fraudster. For the government, IDs can be a way to make sure individuals get the services they need, such as medical care and vaccines.
We’re barely a quarter into 2020, and already it feels as if several lifetimes have been packed into just under three months. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought home the realities of a sea change in commerce and in healthcare, and in the digitization of, well, everything.

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The ID2020 Alliance, a public-private partnership committed to improving lives through digital identity, announced today that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Mercy Corps, Hyperledger and the UN International Computing Center have joined Accenture (NYSE: ACN) as partners in the Alliance. Microsoft will also donate $1M to the effort, joining Accenture and the Rockefeller Foundation as major donors to the initiative.
According to World Bank data, more than 1.1 billion people - disproportionately women, children, and refugees - are unable to prove their identity and therefore struggle to access critical services and benefits. They may be denied a spot in school or turned away from the polls, may struggle to relocate or travel, and are more likely to be trafficked.