Accenture creates Blockchain Global Digital ID
Microsoft Accenture and Avanade are collaborating to build a global digital ID program with the aim of providing legal identification to 1.1 billion people worldwide who don’t currently have any. At the United Nations headquarters in New York both unveiled the ID2020 program. The ID 2020 program is an effort between public and private partnerships to provide legal identity for everyone on the planet by the year 2020.
Accenture built the Blockchain prototype in partnership with Microsoft who is running it on Microsoft cloud Azure. It is a sophisticated decentralized, or “distributed,” database architecture, maintained by multiple, trusted parties on the blockchain, eliminating the need for a central authority. The prototype does not store any personally identifiable information, instead tapping into existing “off-chain” systems when the individual user grants access. Accenture and Microsoft – founding alliance partners of ID2020 who have pledged financial and technology resources – demonstrated the prototype today at the ID2020 Summit at the U.N.
“People without a documented identity suffer by being excluded from modern society,” said David Treat, a managing director in Accenture’s global blockchain business. “Our prototype is personal, private and portable, empowering individuals to access and share appropriate information when convenient and without the worry of using or losing paper documentation.”
How it works
The Accenture prototype uses the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance’s permission Blockchain protocol. The system is expected to support more than 7 million refugees from 75 countries by 2020. The prototype project was led by the multi-disciplinary team at The Dock, Accenture’s new research and incubation hub in Ireland. A team of designers, software engineers and experts in blockchain worked to bring the idea to life.
