There are nearly 1 billion people who cannot prove their identity, and over 3 billion people worldwide without a digital identity.
The potential for digital identity to enable access to essential services in the digital space cannot be understated. From finance to government services to healthcare, digital verification and authentication offers a diverse range of industries the potential to reduce onboarding friction and ensure the most unrepresented communities are able to access digital services.
Yet, barriers to inclusion are holding back digital identity systems from offering a universal experience for all users. Even a seemingly minor accessibility barrier can exclude significant numbers of people who are left unable to operate a solution effectively.
I was inspired by the latest research by Women in Identity which launched on the 12th of June (view the launch webinar here), which demonstrates that even though many organisations aspire to be identity inclusive, they actually lack understanding of how to achieve this noble goal. They miss the hidden costs, and opportunities of not building identity inclusion into their design phase for new services and their re-design of existing services. It’s clear from WiD’s research that most companies lack awareness of what it costs them, and what tasks are actually required to build in inclusion-by-design in the real world.
WiD’s mission is to drive the digital identity industry to build solutions with diverse teams to promote universal access, which enables civic, social, and economic empowerment around the world. They achieve this through thought-leadership, education, best practices, and research. Their current programme of research is the ID Code of Conduct. Women in Identity strongly believe there is a need for a global Identity Code of Conduct to address identity exclusion, being excluded from access to identification credentials, subsequently leading to exclusion from financial services and products.
Their new report aims to help companies and governments identify their costs and design with inclusion in mind. The Economic Impact of ID Inclusion report highlights the economic benefits of taking an identity inclusion by default approach.
Two key takeaways from the research are:
- Widen the happy path for customers by being inclusive from the concept design phase.
- Understand the tasks, monitored costs and hidden costs associated with supporting customers on the unhappy path.
Loss of customers and increased profits are the opportunity cost of identity exclusion. The research found that by widening the “happy path” organisations can widen their customer base. In short, Identity inclusion is good for business.
If you’d like to hear more about the research, WiD will be hosting a panel discussion at the Future Identity Festival in London on November 10-11th. Make sure to register your place if you want to hear more on this topic!
Women in Identity is an international non-profit run primarily by volunteers, and is committed to diversity and inclusion because we believe the best identity products are created by all for all. Building on our research about the human impact of identity exclusion, Women in Identity commissioned Professor Edgar Whitley at the London School of Economics to undertake research to better understand the business impact of identity exclusion. Download the Economic Impact of ID Inclusion report – here
Link to Launch event – YouTube
Link to Biometric Update article
Link to The Papyers interview with Women in Identity Executive Lead
Download the Economic Impact of ID Inclusion report – here