REFUGEES & THE HOMELESS
According to the World Bank, more than a billion people have no way to prove their identity. The unverified include refugees, trafficked children, the homeless, and other people who slip through society. These vulnerable populations could benefit from digital identities that would allow them greater access to health or food services, for example. ID2020 aims to provide digital identities to the 1.1 billion people who currently live without official identification, helping to give them access to essential public services and address basic human needs.
For transient groups of people, such as the homeless, blockchain could provide a way for these people to access social services by providing an alternative way to verify their identity-- instead of independently providing birth certificates, social security cards, and health insurance records everywhere they go, perhaps access to one blockchain ledger confirming their digital identity could be enough. Learn more about a policy proposal for blockchain applications aimed to help the homeless here. For refugees, whose legal documentation can be lost when they flee their countries, blockchain applications could include a secure and reliable way to carry around verified citizenship and immigration records. These applications are already being implemented in refugee camps around the world. In Jordan, refugees can pay for groceries through a biometric scan that recognizes their identity and finds their transaction data in the system. In Finland, refugees are offered a prepaid Mastercard that links to their digital data on the blockchain. Learn more about how banks and other financial institutions are getting involved here. |
However, we must make sure that this technology is able to give these vulnerable populations the autonomy that they deserve. Present dangers of using blockchain include safety concerns, since there are still ways to cheat the system and hacking is still a concern, especially for refugees or the homeless whose identity data is already at higher risk.
Additionally, the fact that blockchain requires digital access (meaning you would need at least a phone to pull up your personal data) could also be a barrier.
Additionally, the fact that blockchain requires digital access (meaning you would need at least a phone to pull up your personal data) could also be a barrier.