WS #290 Sovereignty and Interoperable Digital Identity in Dldcs

Summary

This discussion focused on sovereignty and interoperable digital identity in developing countries, particularly within Africa, as part of a workshop at the Internet Governance Forum in Lisbon. The session brought together representatives from various organizations including the OpenID Foundation, CityHub, AFICTA (Africa ICT Alliance), and government officials from Nigeria and Benin, along with experts from Norway and Japan.

The speakers emphasized that digital identity is critical for closing the digital divide and enabling economic development across Africa. Dr. Jimson Olufuye from AFICTA highlighted how digital identity connects to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) goals and the Global Digital Compact, stressing that “if you cannot identify anybody, it means the person does not really exist” in terms of digital inclusion. Representatives from Benin and Nigeria shared concrete examples of their national digital identity implementations, with Nigeria’s NIMSI system integrating national identity numbers across banking, telecommunications, education, and government services, while Benin’s platform enables free movement within ECOWAS countries.

Technical experts from CityHub and the OpenID Foundation discussed the complexity of transitioning from physical to digital identity documents while maintaining security and privacy properties. They emphasized the need for collaboration between public and private sectors, standardization efforts, and respect for national sovereignty in policy frameworks. The Norwegian representative shared experiences from Nordic-Baltic cooperation, highlighting challenges in cross-border identity recognition even among similar countries.

Key themes included the importance of meeting countries at their level of digital readiness, establishing trust frameworks for cross-border interoperability, addressing data sovereignty concerns, and bridging the digital divide through affordable technology and digital literacy programs. The discussion concluded with calls for concrete pilot projects and continued intersessional work to advance regional digital identity integration, particularly supporting the African Continental Free Trade Area objectives.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Digital Identity Infrastructure and Interoperability**: The workshop focused extensively on building sustainable, interoperable digital identity systems that can work across borders while maintaining security and privacy. Speakers discussed the technical challenges of transitioning from physical documents to digital credentials while preserving their essential properties and trust mechanisms.

– **Regional Cooperation and Cross-Border Implementation**: Significant attention was given to regional initiatives, particularly in Africa through ECOWAS and the African Union framework, as well as Nordic-Baltic cooperation. The discussion emphasized meeting countries “where they are” in terms of digital readiness and creating pilot programs between neighboring countries to test cross-border interoperability.

– **Sovereignty and Data Protection**: A central theme was balancing digital identity interoperability with national sovereignty and data protection. Speakers emphasized the importance of keeping data within national or regional boundaries, respecting local laws and regulations, and ensuring that cross-border systems don’t compromise national control over citizen data.

– **Practical Use Cases and Implementation**: The workshop highlighted concrete applications of digital identity systems, including education credentials, banking services, healthcare access, and travel documents. Examples from Nigeria’s NIN system, Benin’s “It’s Me” card, Japan’s student railway discount system, and Norway’s cross-border services demonstrated real-world implementations.

– **Bridging the Digital Divide and Ensuring Inclusion**: Discussion addressed challenges of digital literacy, internet access, affordable devices, and energy infrastructure, particularly in rural African populations. Speakers emphasized the need for digital identity systems to be inclusive and not leave behind populations lacking digital access or literacy.

## Overall Purpose:

The workshop aimed to explore how to achieve sovereignty-respecting, interoperable digital identity systems, particularly for developing countries. The goal was to share best practices, identify practical next steps for intersessional work, and demonstrate how organizations like AFICTA and CityHub could collaborate to advance digital identity infrastructure that supports economic development, regional integration, and citizen services while maintaining national sovereignty.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and constructive tone throughout, characterized by mutual respect and shared learning among international participants. Speakers were enthusiastic about sharing their experiences and genuinely interested in learning from others’ implementations. The tone was professional yet accessible, with technical experts making complex concepts understandable. There was a strong sense of urgency and optimism about the potential for digital identity to transform citizen services and regional cooperation, balanced with realistic acknowledgment of the significant technical, policy, and infrastructure challenges that remain to be addressed.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Naohiro Fujie** – Chair of the OpenID Foundation Japan, working group co-chair of OpenID Foundation Global focusing on identity verification, supports Japanese government and educational institutes in digitalizing certificates and IDs

– **Kossi Amessinou** – From Ministry of Economy and Finance in Benin, works on private sector monitoring and support, former Director of ACT in Benin Development Ministry

– **Tor Alvik** – Subject Director in the Agency for Public Management and e-Government for Norway, works for the Norwegian Digitalization Agency

– **Audience** – Online participant/questioner

– **Jimson Olufuye** – CEO of Contemporary Consulting (ICT firm based in Abuja, Nigeria), Chair of the Advisory Council of the Africa ICT Alliance (AFICTA), Founder and Foundation Chair

– **Debora Comparin** – Technical Director of the Secure Identity Alliance, co-founder of CityHub, works on standardization and technical specifications for digital identity interoperability

– **Abisoye Coker Adusote** – Director General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMSI), Nigeria, Engineer

– **Moderator** – Gail Hodges, Executive Director of the OpenID Foundation, co-organizer of CityHub

**Additional speakers:**

– **Stéphanie de Labriole** – Executive Director and Senior Program Manager at Alfecta, served as moderator for online participants

# Workshop Report: Sovereignty and Interoperable Digital Identity in Developing Countries

## Executive Summary

This workshop, held as part of the Internet Governance Forum in Lisbon, was co-organized by CityHub and the Africa ICT Alliance (AFICTA) in partnership. The session brought together international experts to examine digital identity, sovereignty, and interoperability challenges, with particular focus on developing countries in Africa.

The discussion featured representatives from Nigeria’s National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Benin’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, Norway’s Digitisation Agency, Japan’s OpenID Foundation, and various organizations working on digital identity standards. The workshop included interactive audience participation through Mentimeter polls and online Q&A, with Stephanie de Labriole serving as online moderator.

Key outcomes included commitments to establish working groups for policy mapping, implement pilot programs between neighboring countries, and continue intersessional work on technical standards and use cases.

## Key Presentations and Discussions

### Opening Framework: Digital Identity and Inclusion

Dr. Jimson Olufuye, CEO of Contemporary Consulting and Chair of AFICTA, established the session’s foundation by emphasizing that “identity is critical to closing the digital divide, because if you cannot identify anybody, it means the person does not really exist.” He connected digital identity directly to WSIS goals and the Global Digital Compact, framing it as fundamental to preventing people from being left behind in digital transformation.

Gail Hodges from the OpenID Foundation, serving as moderator, explained CityHub’s role in working with over 45 countries on digital identity interoperability through three main working groups focusing on use cases (education, refugees, bank accounts), policy frameworks, and technology standards.

### National Implementation Examples

**Nigeria’s Comprehensive System**

Abisoye Coker Adusote, Director General of Nigeria’s NIMC, presented the country’s integrated approach where National Identity Numbers (NIN) are used across banking, telecommunications, education, and government services. The system supports practical applications including school feeding programs, student loan distribution, and census operations.

Nigeria’s approach addresses inclusion through government intervention programs and digital literacy initiatives. During enrollment drives, the system opens digital wallets for unbanked populations, ensuring financial inclusion alongside identity verification. Adusote emphasized the importance of biometric authentication and secure applications that enable individuals to protect their own data.

**Benin’s Regional Integration Model**

Dr. Kossi Amessinou from Benin’s Ministry of Economy and Finance presented the “It’s Me” card system enabling visa-free travel within ECOWAS. He also described the WURI project supported by the World Bank, which aims to facilitate regional integration through digital identity.

Amessinou strongly advocated for data sovereignty, stating that “data centres should be located within Africa to maintain data sovereignty,” reflecting concerns about maintaining control over citizen data and ensuring digital identity infrastructure serves African interests.

### Technical Challenges and International Perspectives

**Nordic Experience**

Tor Alvik from Norway’s Digitisation Agency shared experiences from Nordic-Baltic ICT cooperation that began in 2017. He highlighted that “the linkage of the identity you are coming from one country to the identity you have in the country providing the service is one of the main challenges we actually focus,” demonstrating that even technologically advanced countries with similar legal frameworks face fundamental interoperability challenges.

**Japan’s Digital Wallet Implementation**

Naohiro Fujie, Chair of the OpenID Foundation Japan, announced that Japan had “just yesterday” started providing national ID cards in Apple Wallet. He highlighted unique challenges in transitioning from physical to digital credentials, noting that “unlike physical documents, digital credentials have no difference between copy and original,” requiring new management policies for digital versions.

Fujie advocated for “starting with local standards whilst keeping global standards in mind,” emphasizing bottom-up development that respects local requirements while maintaining international interoperability potential.

### Privacy and Architecture Considerations

Debora Comparin, co-founder of CityHub and contributor to standardization work, raised important privacy considerations by comparing physical and digital documents. She noted that physical documents provide certain privacy properties – they cannot track users’ actions – and argued for maintaining these properties in digital systems.

The discussion addressed surveillance concerns from both government and private sectors. Interactive audience participation through Mentimeter polls explored questions about federated versus centralized systems and surveillance monitoring, with online participants contributing questions about balancing user privacy with fraud prevention.

## Infrastructure and Implementation Challenges

The workshop acknowledged significant practical challenges in achieving digital identity interoperability across Africa. Participants noted that some countries lack basic digital infrastructure, including reliable internet connectivity, sufficient energy infrastructure, and widespread digital literacy.

Adusote provided crucial insight: “There are countries that do not have the simple digital infrastructure. There is no data connectivity, and they have no energy or very little energy. There’s very little or no digital literacy awareness created.” This observation emphasized the need for graduated, flexible solutions that meet countries where they are in terms of digital readiness.

## Proposed Next Steps and Commitments

### Working Group Establishment

Participants committed to establishing working groups to identify gaps across sub-regions and regions, mapping trust frameworks and interoperability criteria. This would provide systematic assessment of readiness levels and identify champions across different African countries.

### Policy Mapping Initiative

Speakers committed to completing comprehensive policy mapping of regulations and legislation across countries before the next Internet Governance Forum, aiming to provide actionable frameworks for cross-border trust establishment.

### Pilot Program Implementation

The discussion identified specific pilot program opportunities between neighboring countries, including Nigeria-Cameroon, Nigeria-Niger, and Uganda-Kenya pairings. These pilots would test both technical interoperability and policy frameworks in real-world conditions.

### Intersessional Work Program

Participants emphasized maintaining momentum between IGF sessions through continued technical working groups, with broader community participation and regular progress reporting on use cases, policy frameworks, and technology standards.

## Key Consensus Areas

The workshop demonstrated strong agreement on several fundamental principles:

– Digital identity is essential for closing the digital divide and ensuring inclusion in digital transformation

– Data sovereignty and maintaining control over citizen data through appropriate legal frameworks and infrastructure placement is crucial

– Multi-stakeholder collaboration between government, private sector, technical community, and civil society is necessary

– Practical implementation through pilot programs and real-world use cases is needed rather than purely theoretical discussions

– Regional integration should leverage existing frameworks like ECOWAS and African Union initiatives

## Conclusion

The workshop established a foundation for continued international cooperation on digital identity interoperability, with concrete commitments for working groups, policy mapping, and pilot programs. The discussion balanced technical possibilities with practical constraints, emphasizing the need for solutions that respect sovereignty while enabling beneficial cross-border functionality.

The consensus on fundamental principles, combined with recognition of implementation challenges, provides a realistic framework for advancing digital identity interoperability in developing countries through graduated, collaborative approaches that prioritize inclusion and sovereignty.

Moderator: Substyptional, in знаешь du. … Great. So a warm welcome to Sovereignty and Interoperable Digital Identity in DLDC’s workshop here in the UNIGF in Lisbon, Norway. I am Gail Hodges, the Executive Director of the OpenID Foundation, a global open standards body that serves billions of users and millions of developers with identity standards. I’m also the co-organizer of CityHub, one of the co-hosts of the workshops today. It’s a personal delight to be here representing the OpenID Foundation, CityHub, and working in partnership with Alfecta. It’s quite serendipity that the IGF MAG has brought us together for this joint session just a few months before we started convening. We found that we have quite a lot in common with our Alfecta partners, and it’s a real pleasure to co-present with them today. I’m joined here by a very impressive group of speakers, including Dabar Kamparan, Technical Director of the Secure Identity Alliance and co-founder of the CityHub, Nahira Fujisan, Chair of the OpenID Foundation of Japan, Tor Alvik, the Subject Director in the Agency for Public Management and e-Government for Norway, as well as on my other side, Dr. Jimson Lafoyer, the CEO of Contemporary Consulting, Founder, Foundation Chair, and Chair of the Advisory Council of Alfecta, Dr. Kosi Amesinu, Private Sector Monitoring and Support, Ministry of the Economy and Finances in Benin, Director General and CEO of the National Identity Management Commission, NIMSI, Nigeria, Abisoy, Coker, Adesote. I will also have joining me a moderator for our online participants, Stéphanie de Labriole, Executive Director of the… Alfecta Senior Program Manager. I will invite all of our speakers to introduce themselves before they make their first comments. We have three objectives for our workshop session today. Our first is to surface different viewpoints on sovereignty and interoperable digital identity and DLDCs, why it’s important, where we are seeing successes today, and how to bring that success to all countries. We will also discuss the importance of the digital identity and DLDCs, and how to make them more inclusive and inclusive for all. We will also discuss the importance of the digital identity and DLDCs, and how to make them more inclusive for all. We will also discuss the importance of the digital identity and DLDCs, and how to bring that success to all countries. We will also explore how policymakers can leverage examples and shared experiences of successful interoperable digital identity implementations, and to inform and support of identity interoperability in Africa, ultimately enhancing economic activity and promoting regional integration. We also will get into what practical steps we can take as a community during our intersessional work before the next IGF. And we will look at how to make those steps more inclusive for all. And we will look at how the tools of CitiHub, the sustainable and interoperable digital identity project, how those tools can help in the context of the African free trade area proposal, and ensuring that those tools are safeguarding national sovereignty. We welcome audience participation in our workshop, and please do have your mobile phones to hand, because shortly we will bring up a QR code for you to participate in our first question. Actually, with that, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. Ngozi Okafor, who will be our moderator for this session. Thank you. Thank you so much, and thank you so much for having me here today. So, I’m going to go ahead and bring up a QR code for you to participate in our first question. Actually, with that, may I ask our technicians to please bring up the slide. You’re invited to scan the QR code and answer our first question, and all of these answers are wholly anonymous, which is our first question, and you can freeform type in your response, why is sovereignty and interoperable digital technology and digital transformation important to our society? And we will be taking you into this session today. I can see those in the room already picking up their phones and scanning the QR code. So as soon as we see those first answers coming in, we should see them pop up on the screen from both our online participants and those that are joining us in the room. We will use the same Mentimeter tool later on in this session, so this is a good way to make sure we’ve got it starting to work in advance. There you go. I see the first answer is coming through on national security. Identity, fundamental right, give it another moment, and then we’ll transition into our first set of speakers. Protection of critical and classified data, recognizing individuals in the digital world, protection, a lot of common themes, a lot of shared interests here, personal digital sovereignty. Okay so people can continue to answer the survey questions as they’re typing them in and we’ll take note of these responses as part of our rapporteur and our summary. So I think we can transition back to the holding slide and I’ll introduce our first speaker. Thank you very much. I’d like to introduce Dr. Jimson, the CEO of Contemporary Consulting, Founder and Foundation Chair, Chair to the Advisory Council of Alfecta. Dr. Jimson, can you kindly introduce yourself and elaborate on what Alfecta does and its roles in WSIS, the IGF, the Enhanced Corporation, and the Global Digital Compact?

Jimson Olufuye: Thank you, Gail. Good morning, everyone. both on site and online. It’s a pleasure to have you all here. My name again is Jimson Olufuye. I have the privilege of being the CEO of Contemporary Consulting, an ICT firm based in Abuja, Nigeria, to data centers, security, integration, and research. I’m also the Chair of the Advisory Council of the Africa ICT Alliance, AFICTA. AFICTA is a concerned private sector-led ICT alliance of ICT associations, companies, and individual professional stakeholders across Africa. We started off in 2012 with six countries in Africa, and today we’re in 43 African countries. Our vision is to fulfill the promise of the digital age for everyone in Africa. As a matter of fact, AFICTA is one of the outcomes of the WSIS. We’re fully engaged with our governments across Africa, engaged with UNECA, with AU, that’s African Union, and we’re also engaged at the CSTD, that is Commission for Science and Technology for Development, that oversee WSIS. So WSIS is about people-centered information society, wherein everyone will benefit from the great infrastructure we have in ICT. And we know that today ICT rules everything, internet basically. And so we are fully committed to ensuring that Africa takes its rightful place in terms of sovereignty, in terms of protection of its Assets. Assets in terms of identity. And these lines of WSIS Action Line 8, talking about cultural identity, other WSIS Action Lines about cyber security, about cooperation, collaboration, and about common purpose for development, especially the sustainable development goal. As we know, this is IGF, another outcome of the WSIS, and we also know about the Global Digital Compact. The Global Digital Compact is also an outcome of WSIS, because when the enhanced cooperation failed, in January 2018, by July, the Secretary General launched the high-level panel on digital interdependence, a digital cooperation led by Belinda Gates and Jack Ma. And that led eventually to the Summit of the Future last year. And that’s September 22nd. The world leaders, they met together and agreed to the Summit of the Future, the Pact of the Future, which has GDC, Global Digital Compact, as one of the outcomes. And it has five objectives. The first objective is about closing the digital divide. And we know identity is critical to closing the digital divide, because if you cannot identify anybody, it means the person does not really exist. And we’re talking about inclusivity. We’re talking about multi-stakeholder. We’re talking about nobody being left behind. So Objective 1 talks about bridging all the divides so that we can achieve the Sustainable Development Goal. And of course, Objective 2 is also there, about ensuring everybody benefits from the digital economy. Also human rights, Objective 3. Objective 4, talking about data governance, interoperable data governance. and also AI. The AI, data is king. So our data matters a lot and identity matters a lot. So we are really proud to be associated with CIDE, CIDE and the alliance collaboration. We are grateful to Mark that brought us together. I trust it’s going to be an enriching relationship and also we can see we have in this panel the government of Benin represented by Dr. Kofi and government of Nigeria in terms of data identity represented by Dr. Abisoye Coker. So this is kind of collaboration and we are proud of it and we want to continue to enrich it going forward. Now when we talk about sovereignties, about laws, appropriate laws that guide data, data of your citizens, protection of your data, this is very important. As someone that is in data ecosystem, in fact in Nigeria we are one of the data controllers so we know the importance of data. They need to protect it and so we believe strongly that sovereignty matters a lot. We need to ensure that our people trust us, that is trust the leadership, the government and also they can have liberty to conduct businesses, enjoy government services in terms of health, in terms of commerce, in terms of travels, immigration, identity generally. And so we are fully invested that is AFICTA and our members AFICTA in collaborating with all our government ages across Africa so that we can all fulfill the vision of WSIS, the expectation of GDC and the hope for every African.

Moderator: Thank you very much. Thank you so much Dr. Jimson. Just to kind of quote you back to say that identity is critical to closing the digital divide is clearly a key theme for what brings us together today in which I think has brought many of our audience members to this particular conversation. We certainly don’t wish to see anyone be left behind, so thank you very much for those comments. I’ll turn now to Dr. Kosi Emesenu from Benin. Dr. Kosi, please do introduce yourself as well, and please elaborate on what you see from Benin’s perspective on best practices in policy and the direction you hope to see emerge in Benin and across Africa.

Kossi Amessinou: Okay, it’s okay. Thank you. I’m Kosi Emesenu. I come from Benin. I’m from Ministry of Economy and Finance in Benin. I was Director of ACT in Benin Development Ministry before, at the Ministry of Economy. Today, I’m working to support and monitor private sector process in Ministry of Economy in Benin. We are talking about identity today. When we are talking about identity, interoperability of digital identity is a challenge for us. This challenge is shared by all the community ecosystems today, all over the world. Biometric documents, for example, particularly digital identity can confer the win-to-win benefit to countries such as good governance, balancing spatial planification, financing inclusion, to provide to people. Women employment, we can take care of this very well. Better social protection can be done when we take care of identity very well. We’ve provided in Benin one platform called East Road when we put our interoperability process inside. In this platform, we have one key called FID for each people in Benin. With that key, we can have two kinds of cards. You have one card called It’s Me. Every people can have it for free. We can have also biometric card provided with ECOWAS to do all thing of activities and also travel anywhere in ECOWAS space. Do your business without visa process. When we talk about digital, we know that it’s important to talk also about the challenge of security. Security because identity have impact to our global digital economy and environment locally. It’s important for us that digital identification can reflect the legal identity of people. If we don’t have legal identity of people, it will be very difficult for us to know who is outside the information we have online. In Benin, World Bank help us with project one called WURI project. WURI project come and consolidate the achievement of the process start by government alone, provide the secure personal identification for each person in Benin. With WURI project today, government facilitate e-commerce, work on securing digital ecosystem. Anywhere in Benin today, people can have one space where they can receive their card. We also decide any African can enter Benin without visa today. For that, we need to have person who are coming for us receive some ID when we enter the country. When we enter, we can identify you by your visa process for free. Visa is for free, you can enter, you can identify you from that. But also, this card semoir received by people can help them to pay SIM card, can help them to go to hospital and identify the SIM and have all the service inside. This card semoir, my colleague use it for example to go to Ghana, this card semoir. You can check it, you can control the QR code on it and know all your identification. We are looking for this kind of process for all Africa. If it is possible for African Union for example, I work to let all the African people have their ID across Africa before the end of 2026, for example. We will have possibility for each African to enter Benin without visa process. This will be something very good and we are looking for that. That is also the African we want. It is important for us today to work on the challenge of security, this identification call. This challenge, for this challenge we put in the process now in Benin, one agency will work on digital space monitoring. Every day we monitor digital space to see what level of security challenge you have today. Thank you very much.

Moderator: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Kosi. Just to kind of play back a little bit of what I heard there at the end, the same walk card really bringing to life, you know, for individuals within Benin, how to access their SIM card, how to access their healthcare services, how to allow that movement of people across jurisdictions like in Ghana, and that serving as a model for what could happen more broadly within Africa. And obviously then by extension, the rest of the world, you know, part of our conversation between Afekta and CitiHub. Really important for that financial inclusion. And also bringing to life the importance of that foundational civil registry capability that countries have to empower their residents and empower the movement of people. So thank you for those thoughtful comments. I’d now like to move on to Director General Abisoy Odusote from the Nigerian government and the lead for NIMSI. May I ask you, DG Abisoye, to kindly introduce yourself and your role with NIMSI and to elaborate on what Nigeria is doing on both identity, civil registry, digital identity, your work within Africa, and your thoughts about global interoperability of digital identity.

Abisoye Coker Adusote: Good morning, everyone. I am Engineer Abisoye Coker-Adusote, the Director General of the National Identity Management Commission. Thank you, Gil, for your questions. Just to quickly give you a summary update on what Nigeria has been able to achieve so far, the NIMSI can shed more light on the tangible progress which has been made in establishing foundational identity which not only supports national development but is increasingly interoperable across the sectors and borders. So, the system that we have designed powers key priorities around social protection, tax reform, financial inclusion, and digital public services. We have successfully integrated the national identity number with the bank verification number which means that every single person that is classified as banked in the population has an account number tied to their NIN. We’ve also been able to achieve the same with the same NIN linkage. We’ve also been able to achieve that linkage with the National Population Commission which means that at birth, every citizen is now able to get issued a NIN from birth. Initially, it used to be from the age of 16, but now it’s from birth. So, we’re able to do that collaboration successfully with UNICEF and the National Population Commission. What we are also doing at the moment is the first of its kind in Nigeria which is the biometric enabled census. So, where we sort of ensure that we don’t have duplicates. in terms of collecting information. They can rely on the NIN to be able to verify the identity of voters or the voting population in Nigeria. We’ve also been able to ensure that the children that are enrolling in the school can definitely get their school feeding through biometric authentication via the NIN. So there are a lot of government programs we’re working on. One is the Credit Cop, which means providing credit access to Nigerians and ensuring that they are biometrically verified via the NIN. We’ve also done another partnership with SMEDAN, which deals with the small-medium enterprises in Nigeria, where we’re able to ensure that MSMEs who have been granted loans or given grants are able to verify their identity through the NIN. For the Joint Admissions and Magic Relation Board, which is the examination that you have to sit to be able to go into a higher institution to pursue your further education, your NIN is required at that instance. So we have a lot of use cases across different ministries, departments and agencies where your NIN is required for you to be able to do what you need to do to be able to access any loans or to be able to further your education or to be able to pay your taxes. And the list is endless. Also, we have partnered with the NEL Fund, which gives student loans to youths that want to be in higher education also. So first of all, it’s kindly Nigerian Student Loan Service, so we’re very proud of Mr. President for being able to bring this vision to life. And you need your NIN so that we can avoid duplication of identity, prevent identity fraud. And I mean, that’s what the beauty of the NIN does. So it’s not just a number that just sits there, but it’s a number that enables you to access different services across government and also the private sector. So regarding the private sector, we also have health insurance. We have banks, we have telcos, we have fintechs, we have manufacturing companies, we have so many use cases around the use of the NIN. Another thing that we’ve been able to do successfully is to ensure continued integration and harmonization of all the sectoral IDs across the ministries, departments and agencies. One thing that Nigeria is very lucky about is that the government has the political will, so we have a president who understands the importance of identity, and so that puts us at an advantage of getting all of these things done. Regarding cross-border interoperability, I want to speak on something. So we had the first West African Economic Summit, which was held a week ago. The focus of that summit was about digital trade across the West African region, and we had quite a few of the presidents from ECOWAS turn up for the event. And one thing was key, that you definitely need digital identity, which is a catalyst for driving digital trade, because with the discussions around the free movement of people across borders, free movement of people and goods and services across borders, and it’s extremely important for us to note how major digital identity is in advancing the cause of digital trade. And we had a lot of conversations, and something stood out to me. It was very obvious that we need to meet each country state at their level of readiness. So there are countries that do not have the simple digital infrastructure. There is no data connectivity, and they have no energy or very little energy. There’s very little or no digital literacy awareness created. So the list is endless, and for us to be able to then obviously then identify. what the barriers are in each of these countries and then we’re able to address the real issues. If you look at the institutional frameworks that we have and if you’re also looking at the legal frameworks, data protection, for example, in Nigeria, our act went live in 2023, May of 2023. However, it does restrict cross-border interoperability, so which means within your state, your country state, you’re able to carry out, you know, your transactions, but then when it comes to cross-border, there’s nothing that points to that there. So I believe that we need to sort of have like a regional agreement based on data sovereignty and, you know, and trust that would sort of allow, you know, data protection acts across each region, allow the modification of their acts to be able to reflect cross-border interoperability. I think it’s very, very, very key because everyone’s obviously worried about data, you know, protecting, you know, the citizens’ data and also ensuring safety of their data and there are also issues around cyber security threat. So I’m sure that I think this happened like a week and a half or two weeks ago where we all witnessed 16 billion passports data breached globally. I mean, we had people like Apple, Google all affected, so I think that’s a real concern for everyone. It’s a huge problem, so we need to ensure that we reflect on this, but at the same time, we’ve got AFTA working, we’ve also got the African Union Digital Interoperability Framework that they’ve put together, so that needs to be adopted. I believe that also regarding cross-border interoperability, you must incorporate digital identity in payment design. It’s extremely important and Nigeria has been able to achieve that of recent. We have the Nigerian interbank settlement system called NIBS, where they have just successfully launched the national payment stack, which is part of the digital public infrastructure. um approach that we have in Nigeria and so that’s been integrated into our national identity management system and and that’s um that allows for cross-border interoperability. We also have the FinTechs have developed some applications too that also allows cross-border interoperability so we need to definitely focus on the digital identity part of things and meet states at the point of readiness for them. I also personally feel that with states that have already made a lot of progress like Nigeria we can definitely have a peering mechanism where we run out a pilot for you know a test pilot for the digital identity cross-border interoperability where we say we pick two member states and then say okay let’s let’s let’s run out this this pilot so we may do Uganda and Kenya or we may do you know Nigeria and Cameroon or Nigeria and Niger and any of the border countries around us I think that would help a great deal but trust frameworks are very key for interoperable IDs across borders, ethical standards for cross-border data sharing, safeguarding sobriety by ensuring ID protocols respect national laws because we all have different laws also political is very very important I can’t stress that enough because there are governments in Africa that have a lot of setbacks there’s political instability and conflicts in their areas so there needs to be a lot that needs to be done across but if I’m to speak to what I mean regarding you know sustainable interoperable digital identity tools and after I think that if we leverage the after phase three and digital trade protocol I think it would help us a great deal to be able to integrate digital identity standards into the e-commerce and digital trade protocol I think I’m going to stop there for now thank you.

Moderator: DG Abisoye, thank you so much for those comments. Just to kind of recap a few key messages that I heard come up is meeting states where they are, recognizing that many jurisdictions have gaps, the importance of the regional agreements that are already emerging, both within ECOWAS as well as broadly across the African Union, the many use cases that Nigeria, for example, has already brought to life for your residents and the potential for that to continue to expand within Nigeria, but within those regional structures like ECOWAS, but also more broadly for Africans to benefit, and that pivotal role that digital identity plays in that transition. So thank you for that offer. Maybe we’ll hold you to it of reaching out the hand to your border countries and setting up those implementations that bring to life the cross-border experiences for your residents. So wonderful examples and great work happening there. I’d now like to transition to our next panel of speakers on the City Hub side, and I think we have some slides from Debora Comparin, so we can get those ready for her comments. Debora, could you kindly introduce yourself and some of the roles that you’re playing in progressing digital identity?

Debora Comparin: And elaborate on City Hub, what it’s seeking to accomplish, and how it’s going about delivering on its goals. Good morning, everyone. It’s, first of all, it’s really a pleasure to be here with you all today and speaking about definitely my favorite topic, that is digital identity. It’s really a passion of mine. I’ve been working on this for the past five years, and what I can say about myself when to introduce me is that I contribute to standardization work. So essentially, it means collaborating with the ecosystem and developing together technical standards, so technical specifications. that can help interoperability. But how hard can it be? So we have heard a lot this morning about the benefits and the social impact that digital identity infrastructure has. And when I, I was thinking to my younger self when, when five years ago I decided to enter into this space of digital identity completely unknown to me before, and I was wondering how hard can it be, right, to just build such digital identity infrastructure? And the answer is very. So I’m still here and there’s still a lot, a lot of work that needs to be done. So let me put that into perspective for a minute before I talk about CDIHUB. Here I like to refer back to physical documents, so digital. Shall I get closer to the mic? Can you hear me okay? Yeah, okay. I’m Italian, I like to move a lot, so bear with me. So I think that when we are talking about building a digital identity infrastructure, it would be very nice to go back, to go back to the physical documents and reflect on the properties of these physical documents that we want to digitalize. And it would be fantastic to maintain some of those properties. So this also is the complexity of the exercise. First of all, when, when you all arrive here, you probably show some, some form of document. So the first step is to digitalize this, this piece of paper or plastic. The second step that we ignore, because we do it every day, is when I prove my identity, I just hand it over to someone. So we need to be able to build these rails to hand this digital version of document. Abisoye Coker-Adusote I was here at IGF this morning and I gave my passport, my ID card. They cannot track my actions and my whereabouts, and I think this is also a very important property that we should keep in mind and maintain in the digital domain. You can also see that this is my document, so I’m the rightful owner of this document. I can’t just pass it over to Gail and she just easily uses it. So that’s the same thing, all these properties should be maintained. And it’s very hard. So there’s a lot of intelligent cryptography definitely behind this to make it happen and a lot of technical work. We are not there yet. There’s also trust that needs to happen. It’s not just about technology, it’s really about collaboration. Because these documents, the digital form, they have to cross borders. So it’s not just valid in my country, it should be valid everywhere I go, it should be understood and trusted, etc. And this is exactly why we created CityHub, because we understood the difficulty of doing this and we absolutely wanted to maintain these properties that I’ve been through with you, because it is about safeguards as well. So it is about preserving privacy and maintaining the security of citizens and individuals in the digital realm. Collectively at CityHub, we thought that it is about collaboration. There’s not a single organization or individual or bright mind in the world that can do it on their own. And so we pulled together an ecosystem of private sector, public sector, so government, research institutes, standard bodies, to collaborate and make this reality, make this vision a reality. This is what CityHub is about. And as you can see, I’m also very proud of this. It’s a new initiative. We started one year and a half ago, but a lot of work has been done. And so I will share with you a couple of slides so that you get a sense of what we have achieved together and what still remains to be done. And you’re most welcome to join us and to contribute. First of all, I heard about DG Abisoye when she said, meet countries where they are. That’s absolutely right. And this is absolutely the approach of CityHub. We don’t have the arrogance of thinking that we’re just going to sit somewhere and define what’s going to happen, how all this digital identity infrastructure should be built, and just go off and share our vision with the world. It’s really about hearing people, hearing about what are the difficulties locally in the different countries. And that’s what we’ve done. And so this is why it’s very important for CityHub that the very first year we spent our time traveling extensively, all of us, and hearing about the different perspectives from countries and the difficulties. And so these are what you see here in the slide, some of the summits in different continents that we’ve done in 18 months. And we’ve collected all the the feedback and the different perspectives and in reports that you can go to the City Hub website and you can download and I’m not here to I don’t have the time unfortunately to get into all the details but indeed there is a confirm a very different level of maturity in different regions but also different needs right. So collectively in all these different summits and in conference participations we have heard inputs, we have been engaging with over 45 countries so this is absolutely massive work and this is what informs the roadmap and the development of City Hub moving forward. I’m going to spend a few minutes to go through some of them what I think are the most important working groups so concrete deliverables that we are carrying forward right as we speak right now this all this work is live, it’s ongoing. First of all use cases, so when we talk about such a complex digital identity infrastructure we need to go back to the user story so what is this for and so we have studied different use cases and because it’s important again to listen to what is important we have prioritized so out of all the discussions we have selected what for the different countries and the different research institutes and multi-stakeholders engagement that we had was the most relevant and so this is what you see in the screen essentially are the top three that were selected by the community so it’s education, refugees and bank account so basically we studied how digital identity is relevant in each of these usages. Then policy, Again, it’s not just about technology, rails and digitalization and cryptography and all the tools that you can come up with. It’s really down to sovereignty of the country and the local rules and regulations that determine how digital identity should be used. So these countries have different perspectives. And so we have started a study of different legal, different regulations and policy at country level. So we’re studying over 10 countries. And we are compiling all these regulations and deriving from it how can we achieve interoperability while respecting the local decisions. This is very important. Again, we’re not here to impose anything. We’re here to listen, to understand and to build rails and to make sure that this digital identity gets done while respecting local regulation. And finally, there’s my favorite, the technology work stream. And this is really about all the tools that I’ve mentioned earlier, how to get this done. It’s very much technical work. So I will not dig into the details now. But this is what I wanted to share with you today. And most of all, if there’s one thing that you can retain by my speech is that you’re most welcome to contribute. It’s really important that we all work together. This infrastructure is for the benefits of all of us individually first as citizens of a country. So I think this is a very important message to take home. So your involvement, whether you are a cryptographer or an engineer or a policymaker or a researcher, it’s very important.

Moderator: Thank you. Thank you so much, Debra. I think your message is to just explain in clear language the transition from physical documents into digital versions of those documents and the importance of maintaining the properties of what you’re doing. residents and what people expect from their digital identity credentials without sacrificing the trust or giving away more information than they need to and doing so in a way that can be secure and trusted and using some fancy cryptography behind the scenes but at the end of the day it’s around those simple user experiences like those champion use cases you gave around education, opening a bank account, and managing the experiences for displaced people that those are really important but the safeguards that we put around that is going to take a lot of engagement and your key message to make sure that the community felt welcome to participate in the City Hub work because it’s going to take a very broad community of subject matter experts and those willing to put the time in to solve for making this cross-border interoperability a reality. So thank you so much. I’m now going to turn to Nahiro Fujie-san, the Chair of the Open ID Foundation Japan, who’s also been very actively involved in hosting the City Hub in Tokyo and works very closely with the Japanese government on this transition from physical identity credentials to digital identity credentials. So please, Fujie-san, could you elaborate on your role, introduce yourself, and share some of the experience in Japan. Okay, good morning everyone.

Naohiro Fujie: I’m Nahiro Fujie from the Open ID Foundation Japan as a chair and also I’m a working group co-chair of Open ID Foundation Global and especially focusing on identity verification which is working groups called Ikebashi and Identity Assurance and also always I support the Japanese government and the educational institute in Japan to digitize their certificates or IDs. So that’s my role in Japan. So, today I express my opinion from the perspective of how to digitalize this identity and have interoperability within a country as well as internationally and globally. So, as you know, Japan is an island nation and there is no border with any other countries, but we have over 120 million population in Japan. We have our own economic sphere in our country, so everyone does not understand what’s the importance of interoperability with other countries so far. But I think that the idea of starting from small to achieve big and huge is very important in this context of interoperability. So, I mean that the most important thing for each country is to define its own standards in accordance with their own law or regulations while keeping global standards in mind. And then to using standard technology like bridging to other countries using standard technology and it brings us global interoperability. So, today I’d like to talk about the situation in Japan in three aspects. First one is education. And the second one is national ideas as Gail mentioned earlier. And the third one is cross-border initiatives including city hub or some kinds of scenarios. So, as I mentioned earlier, To start from small is quite important for us, especially in Japan, I guess. So, we started to define the architecture framework for digital credential with Keio University, one of the biggest universities in Japan. So, to digitalize their identity or certificate Why I say digitalized? Currently, especially educational certificates in Japan are almost all paper-based. So, we have to digitalize, but we have to consider about how to manage the credential itself in a digital manner. So, we started to define the management rule of each type of credentials in education world with Keio University. Sorry, this paper is already published on the internet, but it’s written in Japanese only. So, we are trying to translate into English right now, but so far we provide this in Japanese. For example, we are targeting, we currently have several type of credentials like passport or mobile driver’s license or enrollment certificate in paper manner. And also, in several scenarios, we can use a copy of credential to prove or to verify my identity by some relying parties. But in digital way, there’s no difference between copy and original. So, we have to consider what the copy means in digital manner, and also we have to consider about the deliverable of credential in the digital manner. It doesn’t exist in the physical world, but in the digital world, we have to consider that. So, we classify three types of credentials. First one is original, and the second one is duplicate, which means a copy of the digital. And the third one is delivered credential, I mentioned earlier. So, we need to define the management policy aligned to each type of credential that is required to manage them. Also, we started to, in this scenario, especially for education area, we started to work with National Institute of Informatics, we call NIAI, which is settled under the Ministry of Education in Japan. It’s an educational institute in collaboration with many universities right now. And currently, NIAI operates an academic federation called Gakumin in Japan, and it has interoperability with other countries’ universities, like in the EU or African countries and the United States as well. But they are using, right now, SAMO protocol right now. So, we have to move on to the next level of technology, like how to use a wallet, like that. So, we started to define the framework structure of academic credential using a wallet model. This is the second activity in Japan, to define local standards first in Japan. And the third one is, I’d like to explain about the government-led initiative and the POC project in Japan. This is a quite interesting project. Before moving into this scenario, I think the most important thing for Japan right now is to achieve a situation where digital credentials are being used domestically. Because, as I mentioned, we do not use digital credentials right now. Because we have only paper-based credentials right now. So, as Debora said, it’s important to use digital-based credentials for students. So, the challenge in this project is to utilize national ID cards as well as enrollment certificates which universities issue to the students. And get them to the station, and the students get a discount ticket to ride a train. This is a demonstration use case. From your left side, when students consider to plan a trip to somewhere, the students get a ticket for students. And to buy the ticket from the railway company, the students have to present that they are actually students. Using a digital credential which universities issue to the students, as well as the students have to be verified by the national, like Japan, the government. So, after that, the students have to present the national ID card in a digital manner. After that, they can get a discount ticket and go anywhere. It’s a quite interesting scenario in Japan because they do not have digital identity right now. It’s a good way to give some experience to students to utilize the digital-based credentials. Also, this is quite big news for especially Japanese people. Just yesterday, the Japanese government started to provide a national ID card in the Apple Wallet. Because over 60% of Japanese nationals use iPhone, so it’s a very big progress for digitalized national IDs. Also, we have some initiatives between other countries like between EU and European Union. We have the EU-Japan Digital Partnership Council focusing on how to utilize or how to make interoperable digital identity between two countries or two continents. Also, we have other initiatives with Asian Pacific regions like Asian countries. I mentioned about our initiatives in Japan. How we consider to proceed to the next step from small steps to achieve the big steps.

Moderator: Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Fujie-san. I think starting with the joke of an island nation not having direct borders, but in practice for residents of Japan to conduct their business in their daily lives, they’re very much living across borders and have cross-border transactions. And it’s wonderful to see the leadership role that Japan is taking on the standards as well as on some of those complex interoperability conversations and work with the EU and with other Asian countries, which echoes what we heard earlier from our colleagues here in their African jurisdictions and regions, which are seeking to do the same thing. And that example of something that seems simple, like a discount for a railway ticket for a student, but which actually requires complex digital use cases transforming national ID credential to a digital format, a university credential to a digital format, and then bringing that to a national railway in order to realize something like that discount. Many of us have been fortunate to be poor students at one point or another, and so we know that that will motivate the students, but bringing it to life is very complex. So thank you for your work in driving innovation and the transformation with the Japanese government and other partners. So I’d now like to ask Tor Alvik, working with the Norwegian government as a subdirector on this digital transformation in a Norwegian context, can you kindly introduce yourself and share some of the work that Norway has been doing with the Baltic states for regional development as well as your work with Europe and more broadly?

Tor Alvik: Thank you and good morning. Yes, as you said, my name is Tor Alvik, and I work for the Norwegian Digitalization Agency. This is an entity that tries to build common components, bridging both cross-border interoperability, but also for how we deal with providing services to the public and private sector in Norway. So I will try and move to the next slide. We are one of a group of Nordic-Baltic countries. We are quite similar in both legislation, in population, and in the way people live, very similar countries. So when you came to the airport in Norway maybe yesterday or the day before, if you pay close attention you will often hear the tourists say, oh it’s so nice in Sweden, but it’s the wrong country, this is actually Norway. So how can interoperability with digital ID across borders in a region like this be hard? Well what we found out is, it is very hard. But if you look at some other figures you can see that we have a high level of mobility in the region. A lot of people are moving, settling in different countries, working in another country than they live. We have a great mobility of students and our workforce. This of course makes it very important to also have digital services that function cross-border. In our region we have a very well-developed system for digital identity. It covers for most of the countries more than 90 percent of the population on high security level and almost all services are already digitalized so you can carry out almost every aspect of your life in a digital way. So then when we started looking on how can we make this work cross-border this was a work that was started in relation to the cooperation between the different governments in the region. We have a long-standing cooperation between the administrations in the Nordic countries dating back to the 1950s but If you look at that, it was not until 2017 that we actually broadened that cooperation to also deal with ICT and digital services and cross-border issues. Very early in that work, it was identified that getting digital ID to work interoperably cross-border was one of the main issues that needed to be solved to provide cross-border services to people. What has been important for us in our work is the link between us as technicians and working on the solution and having this close link to the politician side and the decision makers that has made it able for us to address central problems and also foster the uptake of this solution cross-border. We established a project, a working project, where we work together with the different agencies in the different countries. We are working together there since 2018. Some of the main focuses in our cooperation is making sure that each country actually has an EID system that we recognize cross-border. Since we all are members of the EU or closely linked to it, as in Norway’s and Ireland’s case, we build on the ADAS regulation. But just to motivate our politicians and get the understanding that you need to adopt these EID systems so they actually can be recognized, even though we have the legal foundation in place. took time and has been quite challenging. We are also working, and I will come back to that, with some fundamental challenges in how to recognize our citizens cross-border. We build and work with service provision, working with service providers, exploring different user stories and how they function cross-border. We find that many of these services are quite a hindrance to people and need to be addressed at the service level. It is not enough to actually build a digital ID, you have to design the whole user story so that it actually fits a cross-border context. And we also, together with all our other member states in the EU, we also are preparing on the upcoming changes in EIDAS, which would be of course digital wallets and the use of credentials and new models for data sharing. When we have looked at identity in our countries, one of our main observations is that it’s not enough to have a functioning digital identity. You need a system where this functions just as well in the physical world as in the digital world. There is a very close link to our core identity, which is in our countries, or of course in our population registers, but can of course be in other systems. The documents that both are the basis for the digital identity, how you use these documents when issuing a digital identity, making sure that we don’t have duplicates, having biometric verifications of people immigrating and coming to our country. And then you have the issuing process and the use of both digital identity and how. So you need this kind of same level of security both in the physical and digital world. This is not that easy to achieve and also especially challenging when it comes to cross-border identity. So here’s an example from one of my colleagues, Nils Inge is in the audience, so if you want to talk to him afterwards he can give you much more insight in our cross-border cooperation. But this is what happens if you try and use digital identity and try and access a service in our different countries. We have built a digital identity layer so you can come and you can log in and say hi, how are you? And then it gets a lot more quiet because then we have to link you to our national identity systems. Like all of us we have a long life, some of our rights and services may date back 20-30 years for instance. You can have pension rights in another country which you need to access much later. So this linkage of the identity you are coming from one country to the identity you have in the country providing the service is one of the main challenges we actually focus. We can get a digital identity to function and understand. But trying to address this is something we are now trying to work on and I think this is also maybe something that can be taken away from our work to focus on those aspects very early, not just the digital identity. This is a simplification of the user journey. for doing this kind of identity matching steps. As you can see it’s rather complex and when you delve into the details it gets even worse and then you have all the registrations where you lack data and so on, so this can be quite a challenge. So I’m looking forward to the discussion afterwards and hear your insights on what we have done and what can be taken away from that. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Tor Alvik. It is wonderful to have

Moderator: your personal leadership of the work in Norway, which many in the rest of the world have observed the work in Norway and in the Baltics, you know, to achieve your EID goals and to elaborate the work with EIDIS and the EU Digital Identity Wallet Program, which you’re adjacent to, but which your residents are obviously moving across borders with, not only your Baltic stakes but European partners as well. So thank you for your leadership role in that work and bringing to life those use cases for your residents and other Europeans. I think many learnings for the rest of the world and I too look forward to the next stage of our discussion here to get some of the feedback from our online participants and those in the audience. So we’re going to bring back up the Mentimeter poll where we’ll progress to the next slide, if I can get the clicker back. Very good. If you have not already grabbed the QR code to answer the first question, please do take a picture of that QR code so you can participate in the live survey that we’re going to conduct. We’re going to go through a series of questions and the first couple are policy related. So I’ll put Dr. Jimson and Debra on guard that they’ll speak to the first one while our audience is going to participate in the next conversation. So we wanted to discuss, you know, what practical steps can be taken during the intersessional period between this IGF and the next one. around how to use things like the City Hub tools that we heard, you know, Debora elaborating on both the technical tools for interoperability, the trust framework mapping, the work on champion use cases in order to achieve the goals of the African free trade around lifting up the broader population and making sure that sovereignty is respected. So this is an ambitious goal and one that I know, DG Abisoye, you took part in when we were in Addis Ababa a few weeks ago discussing how these tools could be used. But it’s an important question, right? How could we actually progress this work together? Then our audience will be chiming in. So some of them are already saying, you know, champion use cases. But let me turn first to Dr. Jimson to see if you have any thoughts on next steps that we could take, concrete work we could do together.

Jimson Olufuye: Thank you very much, Gail. Well, we do know that if you cannot measure a process, you cannot really manage it. So there is need to constitute maybe a working group so that we could actually identify the gaps that we have across our sub-regions and regions, identify the champions with regard to parameters like a trust framework, with regard to whether the system is open source, to determine the interoperability criteria, and to ensure that, for example, the NetMundia plus 10 statement is really incorporated in what’s being done. Talking about NetMundia plus 10, it’s about bringing all the stakeholders, the private sector, along with the government, the technical community, civil society, and even the youth around the table to discuss

Moderator: the benefits and the use cases. Abisoye Coker-Adusote Dr. Jimson Olufuye, Debora Comparin, Tor Alvik, Dr. Melissa Sassi, Engr. Yes, two comments on my end. The first one, I think, talking about policy,

Debora Comparin: it’s very relevant to map the different regulation, legislation that underpin digital identity in the different countries. So when we talk about cross-border, it’s a work that we have started, we’re conducting with the collaboration of universities as well in CityHub. I think, just to give you an example why that is important, a country is sovereign on deciding how the national identity, the rules applying to how the national identity ecosystem in a certain country for citizens and residents. So when an identity cross-border digitally, how do you know you can trust that digital form of identity? So that’s trust, it’s jargon, it’s level of assurance, but it’s basically a very complicated word to say that, how do you know that that identity was properly given to the right person in the other country, and that actually that identity belongs to the rightful owner, so there’s not been mismatch passing on to somebody else. So it’s really about how are the rules set up to make sure that that identity was digitalized, and these rules, believe it or not, are different in different countries, and if you don’t trust whatever you receive in the digital form, then there’s no value, right? You can have it digitalized, but then there’s absolutely no usage for it. So I think it’s very important that we do this work, and it’s not just a research work of mapping the differences in rules, it’s really about turning this into something actionable. So how can we transform these values and try and encode it in laws into something that can be used together with the digital identity that is passed? So how can I describe the process to obtain this digital identity so that the other country can decide if to trust it or not? So this is all tools that underpin the work of cross-border interoperability. So I think that that’s a very important piece of work that needs to continue, and I would say more should be completed before the next IGF, so to show actually some concrete results. And together with this, POC, proof of concept. I absolutely agree with some of the comments. I think we need to start getting things done. So it shouldn’t just be research and thinking and technology, but it should actually be implemented and tested in the field. So now Eros said something that I totally agree with. We can start small. We don’t need to have a big bank. So we can actually… take baby steps and have two or three countries get together and CDIV would be most, I think, most helpful in this concept of setting up a proof of concept and testing the technologies and the tools that we are developing to make sure that this could work or maybe to know what to improve and from there scale globally this infrastructure. Thank you, Debora. I think that

Moderator: bias to action characterizes everyone on the panel, you know, to do concrete work that is actionable and to do so, I think, you know, in this intersessional period where we’re seeing the early work in Nigeria, we’re seeing the work with Alfikta and Benin, we’re seeing the work in Norway and in Japan, right? There is this hands-on work that’s already happening within jurisdictions and within regions but continuing to progress that through these forums of like Alfikta and CityHub is critical. So we’ve got some good notes on the page which I think people have had a chance to look at. So I’d like to jump to the second policy question and then turn to a couple of the questions that Stephanie’s captured from the online audience. So for our next interactive topic, and I’m going to put on guard DG Abisoye as well as Dr. Kosi and Dr. Alvik, on this next policy question. So how can policymakers leverage shared experiences of successful interoperable digital identity for African regional benefit? So there are these emerging use cases, there are these emerging policies and best practices, how can we put that to work for the African region? So I’ll come first to Dr. Kosi to see if you have any additional

Kossi Amessinou: comments to make on this point. Thank you, moderator. ID is very important but security of the data is very, very important like in an ID. We need to work very well in security issue. The second one is data center. Where will we put our data? Where do you have it? Is it in Africa? Is it outside Africa? It’s important for us to have our data inside Africa. That is very important.

Moderator: Thank you, Dr. Kosi.

Abisoye Coker Adusote: Gigi Abisoye, anything to add to the importance of data security and preserving data within Africa? I think it’s important to note that we need to ensure that there is regional cooperation. Regarding cross-border interoperability, we need to ensure that the frameworks are developed and taken into consideration, like Rebecca had mentioned earlier, about the underlying identity laws in the country and just developing one that’s acceptable to all for everyone to be able to start off. And I think that she also mentioned about the actionable steps. I think that’s very important. So looking at countries that have sort of matured on the identity level from Ghana, Rwanda, Nigeria, we need to ensure that we take those countries and then run a pilot for cross-border interoperability whilst we’re looking at meeting the other country states at their level of readiness to see how we can help them to scale up. And they can also learn from Nigeria also to see how we’ve been able to achieve this. And they can also learn from India with others to see how they can scale up. So what we’ve also done in Nigeria, outside of the EID card, which you’re all aware of, is that we had recently launched the NIN authentication application, which allows for safeguarding of your digital identity and also has the wallet component to it where you’re able to… Abisoye Coker-Adusote Abisoye Coker-Adusote Abisoye Coker-Adusote Abisoye Coker-Adusote Abisoye Coker-Adusote the adoption of the AFTA framework, the African Union framework, and a lot more continue to go in. So it’s a continuous work in progress. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you so much, DG Abisoye. So there’s a lot of ground cover between you and Dr. Cosey. So let me see if we have additional comments from Tor Alvik.

Tor Alvik: Thank you very much. It’s very exciting to hear all the experience that comes from Africa. Also, for the last years, I’ve been involved in working with large-scale pilots leading up to the new ADAS regulation. I see this as quite a helpful tool when trying to explore both the governance side and also technical sides of different user stories. For instance, we have been working on digital driver’s license payments, education, and so on. And this combination of practical work and also policymaking and governance analysis in regard of those user stories has been very helpful when we have been trying to understand the legislative side of the new regulations. So maybe that is something that also could be looked into if that could be used also as a tool in other places. So user stories absolutely brings to life the technology, right, to make sure it’s applicable. It is the only way that you can make these things understandable. Talking about standards and cryptography, decision makers often have a

Moderator: very blank face after two minutes. Right. Absolutely. So, Naohiro Fujie, if you have any comments to add, please, in one moment, I’m just going to recap what I see on the screen. A few of the messages from the online audience around the data strategy for development, leveraging these shared experiences, and fostering collaboration, and digital literacy, also important themes. So any additional comments on your side, Fuji-san?

Naohiro Fujie: It’s quite exciting to hear about the African and Norway experience for me. As I mentioned earlier, it’s very important not only focusing on technology, but focusing on the governance or trust framework. Because in many cases, every country has their own regulation or rules, but in some cases, those rules or regulations have to be changed to have interoperability with other countries. So it’s important for us to collaborate with every country’s government to achieve that. In fact, CDIB has a partnership with every country’s government. So every of us have to have some good relationship with every government.

Moderator: These are my additional comments for me. Yeah, so it’s a lot to do, right? So what’s already in place is not yet fit for purpose to achieve interoperability. So changes within existing rules and policies will be necessary to truly achieve the interoperability, whether that’s regional in Africa or whether that’s global context, I would assume. Very good. So a couple of questions coming from online. Stephanie, would you like to direct them to the audience?

Audience: Yes, I will. I think from those questions, because I know we don’t have much time, there’s actually two themes. One is actually linked to what we’ve just discussed, a question like is it federated, is it centralized? And then the word of the way you digitalize, is it leading to some kind of surveillance? So I think there’s a technical… There’s a question for the technical people here to explain, you know, that this is not the case as Citi is not prescribing any model, as we said. And the second one is, it is very important because it’s, I think there was comments made before, there’s a question on how do we ensure that the digital divide is bridged when currently Africa has deep rural population and then escalating cost of internet and energy, you know, while we are all looking

Moderator: into energy transition as well. So I would say there’s two themes in the three questions. Okay. So I think in the context of federated versus centralized ecosystems, I might start on that one myself. Because as you said, as Citi Hub, we are not opinionated on the appropriate architecture for any individual country. And so each jurisdiction is going to apply their own values, their own rules, their own policies to whether they, you know, what architecture they prefer. And some might lean towards centralized, some might lean towards federated, some might have centralized today and then, you know, evolve towards something that’s more decentralized. So I think it’s an evolving approach. But I see Dr. Jimson has a comment to make on that point. Yes, thank you, Gail. These are very good questions. Technically, I think federated

Jimson Olufuye: database is ideal. And that’s what we use in Nigeria. And through API, you can connect other databases. So even across borders, countries can keep their data locally. And then through API, you can share the specific data categories that have been agreed upon based on policy framework. Somebody also asked a question about affordability. Yes, we need to encourage the operators to be concerned about this. Government also need to give incentives. And also, we need to increase the purchasing power of the people. so that everybody can be incorporated in the digital age. Thank you very much.

Moderator: Thank you so much, Dr. Jimson. Any additional comments on federated versus centralized models? Okay, not hearing any. I do think that there may be comments on surveillance and the desire in, I think, many jurisdictions to avert surveillance of citizens using digital identity infrastructure. Would any of you like to comment on the risks of surveillance and how you might reflect on that challenge? Tor? It is a very interesting topic, one we are now facing when we are trying to work with digital wallets, which are coming next.

Tor Alvik: Those are, by design, very user-centric, so you share all your credentials directly between the user and the service provider where you want to use it. For us, that raises questions. That protects the citizens very well, but on the other side, you also need to tackle misuse and fraud, and how you can then build a model that takes both of these things into consideration is a topic I think needs quite a lot of discussion.

Debora Comparin: Please, Debra. One point on surveillance, because I saw some previous comments. Surveillance can come from both government and private sector, so both need to be addressed and monitored. Especially in this digital identity field, where we have both private and public sector involved, then it makes room for reflection. I think it’s, again, like I mentioned earlier, it’s one property we want to maintain of the physical document.

Moderator: Thank you so much. I’d like to hit that last question on the digital divide and perhaps some of our effective representatives might speak to that because obviously one would need to have a mobile device, one would need to have Wi-Fi access, one would need broadband infrastructure to take advantage of digital identity interoperability. So there’s a lot of foundation capabilities that would be important. Any comments on bridging the digital divide and what can and will be an ongoing challenge? Did you have a swing? Thank you for that question. So regarding the digital divide, I think that that can

Abisoye Coker Adusote: be easily breached if you try and create a lot of awareness on digital literacy because even as it stands, those that have mobile phones still are not 100% digitally trained and they don’t understand the implications of the digital identity. So I would say that digital identity is a brilliant concept. It does make life easier, but at the same time you need to obviously safeguard the individual’s rights, the citizens’ rights. So we need to make sure that the laws enacted definitely safeguards all their rights. What we’ve done in Nigeria is to do a few things. The federal government is considering flooding the market with very affordable, basic mobile phones so that it’s extremely affordable and the average Nigerian that’s unbacked is able to use this phone. Another thing we’re doing with the enrollment drive this year is that we are opening accounts. and wallets for all the people that don’t, that are unbanked. So as we go out to enroll people, we are ensuring that we open wallets for them so that they can be, they’re able to participate in government intervention programs and not be excluded at all. So that would help the government a great deal to ensure financial inclusion and also to help to bridge the digital divide. So we’re doing a lot of media awareness on digital literacy. And with the NIN authentication application, we want to ensure that people understand the value of having the digital wallet so you’re able to use this application. This is how you can protect your data yourself. So for you to log in, it is biometric enabled. So you have to obviously use your biometrics to, you know, to log into the application. Great. Thank you. So thank you so much to the panel

Moderator: for the rich discussion today. I know we’re very much at time. So thank you for the thoughtful contributions. And we will be sharing the report from this event with the IGF staff. And there will be, I believe, a recording of this session as well to share with your colleagues. Thank you again. Thank you. Dr. Jimson Olufuye, Debora Comparin, Tor Alvik, Dr. Jimson Olufuye, Dr. Melissa Sassi, Engr.

Agreement points

Digital identity is fundamental to closing the digital divide and ensuring inclusion

Speakers

– Jimson Olufuye
– Moderator

Arguments

Identity is critical to closing the digital divide because without identification, people cannot access services

Digital identity is fundamental to preventing people from being left behind in digital transformation

Summary

Both speakers emphasize that proper identification systems are essential for digital inclusion, as people without verified identities cannot access government services, financial services, or participate in the digital economy.

Topics

Development | Digital identities | Digital access

Data sovereignty and keeping data within national/regional boundaries is crucial

Speakers

– Jimson Olufuye
– Kossi Amessinou

Arguments

Countries need appropriate laws to protect citizen data and ensure sovereignty over their digital assets

Data centers should be located within Africa to maintain data sovereignty

Summary

Both speakers stress the importance of maintaining control over citizen data through appropriate legal frameworks and infrastructure placement, emphasizing national and regional sovereignty over digital assets.

Topics

Data governance | Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential for digital identity success

Speakers

– Debora Comparin
– Moderator
– Naohiro Fujie

Arguments

Collaboration between private sector, government, research institutes, and standards bodies is essential for building interoperable systems

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential for developing sustainable digital identity solutions

Starting with local standards while keeping global standards in mind is essential for achieving international interoperability

Summary

All three speakers agree that no single entity can solve digital identity challenges alone, requiring cooperation between diverse stakeholders including government, private sector, technical community, and civil society.

Topics

Digital standards | Infrastructure | Digital identities

Practical implementation through pilot programs and proof-of-concepts is necessary

Speakers

– Abisoye Coker Adusote
– Debora Comparin
– Tor Alvik
– Moderator

Arguments

Pilot programs between neighboring countries could demonstrate cross-border interoperability before broader implementation

Education, refugee management, and bank account opening are priority use cases identified by the international community

User stories and practical proof-of-concepts are necessary to make complex technical concepts understandable to decision makers

Practical proof-of-concepts and pilot programs are necessary to move from theory to implementation

Summary

All speakers emphasize the need for concrete, actionable implementations rather than theoretical discussions, advocating for pilot programs and real-world use cases to demonstrate feasibility and build confidence.

Topics

Digital identities | Development | Digital standards

Meeting countries at their level of readiness is essential for successful implementation

Speakers

– Abisoye Coker Adusote
– Debora Comparin

Arguments

Cross-border interoperability requires meeting each country at their level of readiness due to varying infrastructure capabilities

Collaboration between private sector, government, research institutes, and standards bodies is essential for building interoperable systems

Summary

Both speakers recognize that countries have different levels of digital infrastructure development and that successful regional integration must account for these disparities while providing appropriate support.

Topics

Development | Digital access | Infrastructure

Similar viewpoints

Both Nigerian and Benin representatives demonstrate successful national digital identity implementations that integrate across multiple sectors and enable regional mobility, serving as models for broader African integration.

Speakers

– Abisoye Coker Adusote
– Kossi Amessinou

Arguments

Nigeria has successfully integrated national identity numbers with banking and telecommunications systems

Benin’s “It’s Me” card enables visa-free travel within ECOWAS and could serve as a model for broader African integration

Topics

Digital identities | Infrastructure | Development

Both speakers acknowledge the complex balance between privacy protection and security concerns in digital identity systems, recognizing that surveillance risks exist from multiple sources and that user-centric approaches create new challenges.

Speakers

– Debora Comparin
– Tor Alvik

Arguments

Surveillance risks come from both government and private sector and need to be addressed in digital identity systems

Digital wallet models that are user-centric protect citizens but create challenges for preventing fraud and misuse

Topics

Privacy and data protection | Cybersecurity | Digital identities

Both speakers from Nigeria emphasize the need for government intervention and market incentives to address affordability and accessibility challenges in digital identity adoption.

Speakers

– Abisoye Coker Adusote
– Jimson Olufuye

Arguments

Government intervention through affordable mobile phones and digital literacy programs can help bridge the digital divide

Operators need incentives to make services more affordable and increase purchasing power of citizens

Topics

Development | Digital access | Economic

Unexpected consensus

Technical complexity of digital identity interoperability even among similar countries

Speakers

– Tor Alvik
– Debora Comparin

Arguments

Nordic-Baltic countries demonstrate that even similar nations face significant challenges in achieving cross-border digital identity interoperability

Digital identity infrastructure requires maintaining the same security properties as physical documents in the digital realm

Explanation

Despite representing very different regions (Nordic-Baltic vs. global perspective), both speakers acknowledge the inherent technical complexity of digital identity interoperability, with Alvik showing that even highly developed, similar countries struggle with implementation, while Comparin explains the cryptographic and technical challenges involved.

Topics

Digital identities | Infrastructure | Digital standards

Need for regulatory harmonization while respecting national sovereignty

Speakers

– Abisoye Coker Adusote
– Debora Comparin
– Naohiro Fujie

Arguments

Regional agreements based on data sovereignty and trust frameworks are needed to enable cross-border data sharing

Policy mapping of different regulations across countries is crucial for establishing trust frameworks

Starting with local standards while keeping global standards in mind is essential for achieving international interoperability

Explanation

Representatives from Nigeria, the global CityHub initiative, and Japan all independently arrived at the same conclusion that successful interoperability requires careful mapping and harmonization of different national regulations while respecting local sovereignty – an unexpected convergence across very different contexts.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Data governance | Digital standards

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated remarkable consensus across multiple key areas: the fundamental importance of digital identity for inclusion, the need for data sovereignty, the requirement for multi-stakeholder collaboration, and the necessity of practical implementation approaches. There was also strong agreement on meeting countries at their readiness levels and the importance of pilot programs.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for global digital identity development. The agreement spans technical, policy, and implementation aspects, suggesting a mature understanding of the challenges and a convergent approach to solutions. This consensus provides a strong foundation for international cooperation and suggests that despite different regional contexts, there are universal principles and approaches that can guide digital identity interoperability efforts globally.

Different viewpoints

Data storage location and sovereignty approach

Speakers

– Kossi Amessinou
– Jimson Olufuye

Arguments

Data centers should be located within Africa to maintain data sovereignty

Federated database architecture with API connections allows countries to keep data locally while enabling cross-border sharing

Summary

Amessinou advocates for keeping all African data within Africa as a sovereignty requirement, while Olufuye proposes a more flexible federated approach where countries maintain local data but can share specific categories through APIs based on policy frameworks

Topics

Infrastructure | Data governance | Legal and regulatory

Centralized vs federated architecture preferences

Speakers

– Jimson Olufuye
– Moderator

Arguments

Federated database architecture with API connections allows countries to keep data locally while enabling cross-border sharing

Digital identity is fundamental to preventing people from being left behind in digital transformation

Summary

Olufuye specifically advocates for federated database systems, while the Moderator emphasizes that CityHub is not opinionated on architecture, allowing countries to choose centralized, federated, or evolving approaches based on their values and policies

Topics

Infrastructure | Digital standards | Data governance

Unexpected differences

Scope of data sovereignty requirements

Speakers

– Kossi Amessinou
– Other speakers

Arguments

Data centers should be located within Africa to maintain data sovereignty

Various arguments about federated systems and cross-border sharing

Explanation

Amessinou’s strict position on keeping all African data within Africa contrasts with other speakers’ more flexible approaches to data sovereignty. This is unexpected given the general consensus on sovereignty importance, but reveals different interpretations of what sovereignty means in practice

Topics

Data governance | Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkable consensus on fundamental goals (digital identity importance, sovereignty respect, cross-border interoperability needs) with disagreements primarily focused on implementation approaches and technical architectures. Main areas of disagreement centered on data storage requirements, system architecture preferences, and specific methods for achieving interoperability while maintaining sovereignty.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The speakers demonstrated strong alignment on core principles and objectives, with differences mainly in technical implementation strategies and sovereignty interpretation. This suggests a mature discussion where fundamental concepts are accepted, but practical implementation details require further negotiation and compromise. The disagreements are constructive and focused on ‘how’ rather than ‘whether’ to proceed, which is positive for advancing the digital identity interoperability agenda.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both Nigerian and Benin representatives demonstrate successful national digital identity implementations that integrate across multiple sectors and enable regional mobility, serving as models for broader African integration.

Speakers

– Abisoye Coker Adusote
– Kossi Amessinou

Arguments

Nigeria has successfully integrated national identity numbers with banking and telecommunications systems

Benin’s “It’s Me” card enables visa-free travel within ECOWAS and could serve as a model for broader African integration

Topics

Digital identities | Infrastructure | Development

Both speakers acknowledge the complex balance between privacy protection and security concerns in digital identity systems, recognizing that surveillance risks exist from multiple sources and that user-centric approaches create new challenges.

Speakers

– Debora Comparin
– Tor Alvik

Arguments

Surveillance risks come from both government and private sector and need to be addressed in digital identity systems

Digital wallet models that are user-centric protect citizens but create challenges for preventing fraud and misuse

Topics

Privacy and data protection | Cybersecurity | Digital identities

Both speakers from Nigeria emphasize the need for government intervention and market incentives to address affordability and accessibility challenges in digital identity adoption.

Speakers

– Abisoye Coker Adusote
– Jimson Olufuye

Arguments

Government intervention through affordable mobile phones and digital literacy programs can help bridge the digital divide

Operators need incentives to make services more affordable and increase purchasing power of citizens

Topics

Development | Digital access | Economic

Key takeaways

Identity is fundamental to closing the digital divide and enabling inclusive digital transformation, as people without digital identity cannot access essential services

Cross-border digital identity interoperability requires meeting countries at their current level of technological readiness and infrastructure development

Successful implementation requires collaboration between multiple stakeholders including governments, private sector, research institutions, and standards bodies

Data sovereignty is critical – countries need appropriate laws to protect citizen data and maintain control over their digital assets, with preference for keeping data within regional boundaries

Technical architecture should be federated rather than centralized, allowing countries to maintain local data control while enabling cross-border sharing through APIs

User-centric design focusing on practical use cases (education, banking, healthcare, travel) is essential for successful adoption and public trust

Regional integration frameworks like ECOWAS and African Union digital interoperability initiatives provide pathways for scaling successful national implementations

Digital literacy and affordability remain significant barriers that require government intervention and private sector incentives to address

Resolutions and action items

Constitute a working group to identify gaps across sub-regions and regions, mapping trust frameworks and interoperability criteria

Complete policy mapping of different regulations and legislation across countries before the next IGF to show concrete results

Implement proof-of-concept pilots between neighboring countries (suggested pairings: Nigeria-Cameroon, Nigeria-Niger, Uganda-Kenya) to test cross-border interoperability

Develop actionable tools that encode legal and regulatory differences into digital identity systems to enable trust decisions

Continue CityHub’s technical working groups on use cases, policy frameworks, and technology standards with broader community participation

Leverage existing regional frameworks like AfCFTA and AU Digital Interoperability Framework for implementation

Establish intersessional work between IGF sessions to maintain momentum on practical implementation steps

Unresolved issues

How to effectively address the digital divide in rural areas with limited internet access and high connectivity costs

Balancing user privacy protection with the need to prevent fraud and misuse in digital identity systems

Resolving identity matching challenges when linking citizens across different national identity systems

Determining optimal governance models for cross-border data sharing while maintaining national sovereignty

Addressing surveillance concerns from both government and private sector actors in digital identity ecosystems

Scaling successful pilot programs to full regional or continental implementation

Harmonizing different legal frameworks and data protection regulations across countries to enable seamless interoperability

Suggested compromises

Federated database architecture that allows countries to maintain local data sovereignty while enabling cross-border sharing through agreed-upon APIs and data categories

Phased implementation approach starting with pilot programs between ready countries while supporting capacity building in less developed nations

User-centric digital wallet models that protect citizen privacy while incorporating necessary fraud prevention mechanisms

Regional agreements that respect national sovereignty while establishing minimum trust framework standards for cross-border recognition

Hybrid approach combining government-led infrastructure development with private sector innovation and affordability initiatives

Flexible technical standards that accommodate different levels of technological maturity while maintaining interoperability goals

Identity is critical to closing the digital divide, because if you cannot identify anybody, it means the person does not really exist. And we’re talking about inclusivity. We’re talking about multi-stakeholder. We’re talking about nobody being left behind.

Speaker

Dr. Jimson Olufuye

Reason

This comment reframes digital identity from a technical infrastructure issue to a fundamental human rights and inclusion issue. It establishes the philosophical foundation that digital existence requires digital identity, making it essential for participation in modern society.

Impact

This comment set the tone for the entire discussion by establishing digital identity as not just a convenience but as a prerequisite for digital citizenship. It influenced subsequent speakers to consistently return to themes of inclusion and ensuring no one is left behind in their technical implementations.

Meet each country state at their level of readiness. So there are countries that do not have the simple digital infrastructure. There is no data connectivity, and they have no energy or very little energy. There’s very little or no digital literacy awareness created.

Speaker

Abisoye Coker Adusote (DG Nigeria)

Reason

This comment introduced crucial pragmatic realism to the discussion, acknowledging that technical solutions must account for vastly different infrastructure capabilities across African nations. It shifted focus from idealized interoperability to practical implementation challenges.

Impact

This observation fundamentally changed the discussion’s approach from assuming uniform readiness to acknowledging the need for graduated, flexible solutions. It led other speakers to emphasize starting small, pilot programs, and building foundational capabilities before attempting complex interoperability.

It would be fantastic to maintain some of those properties [of physical documents]. First of all, when you all arrive here, you probably show some form of document… They cannot track my actions and my whereabouts, and I think this is also a very important property that we should keep in mind and maintain in the digital domain.

Speaker

Debora Comparin

Reason

This comment brilliantly used the familiar experience of physical documents to explain complex digital identity challenges. It introduced the critical concept that digitization shouldn’t sacrifice privacy properties that people expect from physical credentials.

Impact

This analogy made technical concepts accessible to policymakers and addressed surveillance concerns raised by online participants. It shifted the conversation from purely technical implementation to user experience and privacy preservation, influencing later discussions about federated vs. centralized systems.

We need to ensure that our data inside Africa. That is very important… Where will we put our data? Where do you have it? Is it in Africa? Is it outside Africa?

Speaker

Dr. Kossi Amessinou (Benin)

Reason

This comment introduced the critical dimension of data sovereignty and geographic data residency, connecting technical architecture decisions to national sovereignty concerns. It highlighted that interoperability cannot come at the cost of losing control over citizen data.

Impact

This comment elevated the discussion from technical interoperability to geopolitical considerations, influencing the conversation about federated architectures and API-based data sharing that keeps data locally while enabling cross-border functionality.

The linkage of the identity you are coming from one country to the identity you have in the country providing the service is one of the main challenges we actually focus. We can get a digital identity to function and understand. But trying to address this is something we are now trying to work on.

Speaker

Tor Alvik (Norway)

Reason

This comment revealed a sophisticated technical challenge that goes beyond basic authentication – the problem of identity continuity across jurisdictions. It showed that even technically advanced regions struggle with fundamental interoperability issues.

Impact

This insight from an advanced digital identity region provided sobering realism about the complexity of true interoperability. It influenced the discussion toward recognizing that technical standards alone are insufficient – policy frameworks and identity matching protocols are equally critical.

Surveillance can come from both government and private sector, so both need to be addressed and monitored. Especially in this digital identity field, where we have both private and public sector involved, then it makes room for reflection.

Speaker

Debora Comparin

Reason

This comment expanded the surveillance discussion beyond the typical government surveillance concerns to include private sector surveillance, recognizing the multi-stakeholder nature of digital identity ecosystems and the need for comprehensive privacy protections.

Impact

This observation broadened the policy discussion to consider comprehensive privacy frameworks that address all potential surveillance vectors, not just government overreach. It influenced the conversation about the need for balanced approaches that prevent fraud while protecting privacy.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by establishing it as a multi-dimensional challenge requiring technical, policy, and social solutions. Dr. Jimson’s opening comment about identity being critical to digital inclusion set an inclusive, human-rights-focused tone that permeated the entire conversation. DG Abisoye’s pragmatic observation about meeting countries where they are shifted the discussion from theoretical interoperability to practical implementation strategies. Debora’s physical document analogy made complex technical concepts accessible while emphasizing privacy preservation, while Dr. Kossi’s data sovereignty concerns elevated the conversation to geopolitical considerations. Tor’s insights about identity linkage challenges provided sobering realism about implementation complexity even in advanced regions. Together, these comments transformed what could have been a purely technical discussion into a nuanced exploration of digital identity as a socio-technical system requiring careful balance of inclusion, sovereignty, privacy, and practical implementation considerations.

How to achieve cross-border interoperability while respecting different national data protection laws that currently restrict such interoperability?

Speaker

Abisoye Coker Adusote

Explanation

Nigeria’s data protection act restricts cross-border interoperability, and there’s a need for regional agreements based on data sovereignty and trust to modify acts across regions to allow cross-border functionality

How to address the challenge of identity matching and linking citizens across different national identity systems for cross-border services?

Speaker

Tor Alvik

Explanation

This was identified as one of the main technical challenges in the Nordic-Baltic cooperation, where linking identity from one country to services in another country remains complex

What constitutes ‘copy’ and ‘deliverable’ credentials in the digital realm, and how should they be managed differently from original credentials?

Speaker

Naohiro Fujie

Explanation

Unlike physical documents, digital credentials have no difference between copy and original, requiring new frameworks to define and manage different types of digital credentials

How to map and harmonize different legal frameworks and regulations across countries to enable trusted cross-border digital identity?

Speaker

Debora Comparin

Explanation

Different countries have varying rules for identity verification and trust levels, requiring comprehensive mapping and actionable frameworks to enable cross-border trust

How to bridge the digital divide in rural Africa with escalating costs of internet and energy while pursuing digital identity initiatives?

Speaker

Online participant (via Stephanie)

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental infrastructure challenges that could prevent widespread adoption of digital identity systems in underserved areas

How to balance fraud prevention and surveillance concerns in user-centric digital wallet systems?

Speaker

Tor Alvik

Explanation

Digital wallets protect citizens by design but raise questions about how to tackle misuse and fraud while maintaining privacy protections

Where should African countries store their digital identity data – within Africa or outside – and what are the sovereignty implications?

Speaker

Kossi Amessinou

Explanation

Data sovereignty is crucial for African nations, requiring decisions about data center locations and control over citizen data

How to establish pilot programs for cross-border digital identity interoperability between specific country pairs?

Speaker

Abisoye Coker Adusote

Explanation

Suggested creating test pilots between border countries like Nigeria-Cameroon or Uganda-Kenya to demonstrate cross-border functionality before scaling

How to ensure digital identity systems prevent surveillance by both government and private sector entities?

Speaker

Debora Comparin

Explanation

Surveillance risks come from multiple sources and need to be addressed in system design to maintain citizen privacy rights

What working group structure and measurement criteria should be established to identify gaps and champions across African sub-regions?

Speaker

Jimson Olufuye

Explanation

Need for systematic approach to assess readiness levels, trust frameworks, and interoperability criteria across different African countries and regions