Page 50 - ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services – Technology, innovation and competition

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Technology, Innovation and Competition

Figure 3: Confidence in static digital identities over time

The static nature of these identities leads to concerns around their long-term adequacy and quality. The
consequence of this is that they need to be periodically re-verified if they are to be trusted, as is the case, for
example, with the financial regulator’s requirement for a periodic re-verification process in South Africa. The
varying quality of static digital identities over time is illustrated in Figure 3.

Static digital identities are, of course, an important element in a national digital identity infrastructure, as
a foundational identity forming an official document for access to government services, border control,
etc. However, it is increasingly the case that more dynamic approaches need to be considered, easing the
onboarding process and reflecting day to day usage, as outlined in the next section.

2.5.2 Online / dynamic

The second broad class of digital identities, online or dynamic identities, originate in the Internet corporations’
need to build a profile of individuals, which can be extended by creating identities that can be linked to and
used by other services. An obvious example of this is Facebook Connect – though this self-asserted, social
identity must be regarded as having a LoA 1 associated with it.

In contrast to the hierarchical approach to establishing a conventional or static digital identity, illustrated in
Figure 2, the creation and development of a dynamic digital identity is an iterative process, as illustrated in
Figure 4.

Figure 4: Lifecycle of a dynamic digital identity

These identities are self-asserted, meaning that the individual states their identity, and therefore they offer
– initially at least – a low level of assurance (LoA 1). However, over time, repeated usage, and the addition of
further attributes (verified mobile phone numbers, passport numbers, perhaps validated and certified at the
time they are added by a governmental or non-governmental authority), sponsorship by other citizens with
stronger digital identities (similar to the social graph model), and frequency and longevity of use, confidence

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