6 days Ago By Kamya Pandey
India will soon release a set of global technology standards for digital IDs, the Joint Secretary for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Sanket Bhondve mentioned during the Global Technology Summit on April 12. He mentioned that five countries, including the Philippines, Monaco, and Ethiopia, have carried out national-level digital ID rollouts through the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore’s (IIIT-B) Modular Open-Source Identity Platform (MOSIP), which facilitates digital ID adoption.Bhondve mentioned this while discussing the scope of standardisation that is possible with digital public infrastructure (DPI) products and what specific aspects of DPI products need customisation for specific countries.
The moderator for the discussion pointed out that a country like the Cook Islands has a population of about 15,000 people, and asked how a country like that can roll out services like digital IDs and digital payments. “If we are implementing and rolling out something, the fundamental principles [need] to be open source,” Bhondve explained, adding that this is why India’s DPIs work.Cannot copy-paste DPI across countries:Just like Bhondve, other speakers agreed that one cannot copy-paste DPI from one country to another.
“It [copy-pasting] is not possible because the DPI implementations have a lot of implications on the culture, the geo-positioning, and the population there, the education levels, digital literacy,” C.M. Malladi, Global Head of Digital Public Infrastructure and Inclusion Programs at TCS, mentioned during the summit.
Malladi added that no matter what the purpose is for a digital identity, identity as a subject is standard. “The way in which you communicate, the protocols or the way in which you transmit data, the technology is standard. The features could be customised,” he said.
He explained that while DPIs can be configured for different regions, the biggest challenge is getting the technology adopted on the ground, which is where private players come in. “The government can say that I want to have a direct benefit transfer scheme, but how you take it down to the ground is actually an ecosystem play,” he added.The role of private players in DPI adoption:Malladi argued that customisations to the DPI based on local dynamics are necessary to ensure DPI adoption.
To this, fellow speaker Rohini Srivathsa, Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft India and South Asia, added that system integrators have an important role in this equation to manage the product and the aspects of the product that need customisation. For context, system integrators are companies that specialise in combining hardware and software components from multiple vendors to meet the user’s needs. Srivasthsa also mentioned that certain products only need configuration changes to meet the needs of end users, instead of complete code changes.
Also read:Six countries take up IIIT-B’s Aadhaar-like digital identity programmeHere Are the Key Points from G20 Task Force Report on Digital Public InfrastructureHow Not To Screw Up Your Digital Public InfrastructureThe post India to release global standards for Digital IDs: MeitY Joint Secy appeared first on MEDIANAMA..
