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Digitial Identity

World Privacy Forum Commemorates International ID Day 2024 and reaffirms the importance of ID systems that Do No Harm now, and cannot do harm in the future

Video and blog post by WPF Founder and Executive Director Pam Dixon commemorating International ID Day 2024, discussing the importance of ensuring legal identity for all people, and the equal importance of ensuring that identity systems and ecosystems Do no Harm and are built so they cannot do harm now, nor in the future.

ID4Africa’s 10th Annual General Meeting enters a new phase of growth and maturity: A perspective from Civil Society

ID4Africa celebrates its 10th Annual General Meeting this year in Cape Town, South Africa with a program that pushes against multiple boundaries and achieves a new breadth and greater inclusion of diverse stakeholders. ID4Africa’s AGM is easily the most significant identity conference in the world at this point. There are multiple reasons for this; an important one is that the knowledge content at ID4Africa is not replicated anywhere else. In the past, this knowledge base has been focused primarily around government stakeholders. This year, this roster will now carefully expand to civil society organizations that have been deeply involved with African ID systems to gather additional perspectives and foster cooperative dialogue.

WPF comments to CFPB regarding notice of proposed rulemaking on Personal Financial Data Rights

WPF submitted comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding its notice of proposed rulemaking regarding Personal Financial Data Rights. This was a particularly important NPRM because it touches on multiple aspects of financial data in our modern era, which means that it touches privacy, identity, poverty, and digital rights ...

WPF's contribution to ID4Africa Workshop on Privacy and Data Protection in ID Systems, Nairobi, Kenya 2023

The World Privacy Forum is pleased to provide a summary of Executive Director Pam Dixon's work in Nairobi, Kenya at the ID4Africa AGM. Dixon served as the Senior Special Rapporteur for two workshops at the 2023 ID4Africa Annual General Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya 23-25 May.In June, ID4Africa hosted a live ...

WPF Executive Director to serve as Senior Rapporteur for ID4Africa workshops regarding policy and regulatory challenges for digital identity and privacy and data protection in ID systems

The World Privacy Forum is pleased to announce Executive Director Pam Dixon has been invited to serve as the Senior Special Rapporteur for two workshops at the 2023 ID4Africa Annual General Meeting which will take place in Nairobi, Kenya 23-25 May. ID4Africa is regarded as the single most important gathering of identity experts and authorities in the world. The focus of Dixon's rapporteur work will include policy and regulatory challenges for digital identity: the African perspective (Workshop 2), and privacy and data protection in identity systems (Workshop 4)...

India's Ministry of Electronics and IT has opened a consultation on its freshly proposed comprehensive privacy legislation, DPDP 2022

After many study commissions and multiple serious attempts at a comprehensive data privacy bill, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has proposed a new draft privacy bill, and has opened a public consultation regarding the draft until 17 December 2022. The Ministry states that the proposed bill, the Digital ...

Identity ecosystems are a central aspect of global digitalization; the principle of Do No Harm must be a policy priority and commitment

Identity is a data-rich resource that acts as a key to connect all levels of emerging digital ecosystems. All forms of ID carry some risk, but digital forms of ID, or “dematerialized ID,” cuts across all sectors and links copious data about individuals, their behaviors, financial status, associates, and potentially even political and religious views. Over time, distinct patterns emerge from the linked data and create new kinds of risks for individuals and groups. As the world becomes increasingly and intensely digitalized, we can expect challenges in the identity space to grow apace unless proactive attention is given to identifying and mitigating the current and future risks.

ISPI Forum on Digital Transformation, WPF speaker 

The Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) will be holding a High Level Forum on Digital Transformation in connection with OECD. The event will be held 16 May 2022 in hybrid format. WPF will be speaking about what risks exists for consumers arising from illicit use of their personal ...

WPF mini documentary on challenges in ID systems - in collaboration with ID4Africa

WPF launched a mini-documentary about problems in identity systems on 17 November, 2021 in collaboration with ID4Africa. Digital identity systems are generally accepted as positive tools for social good. Nevertheless, they can pose several dangers and cause significant concerns. This mini-documentary takes viewers on a tour around the world to ...

National IDs Around the World — Interactive map

About this Data Visualization : This interactive map displays the presence of National IDs and electronic IDs, including biometric IDs, in countries globally. The raw dataset used to create the map data originates from the World Bank (See data sourcing below). This dataset covers high, middle and lower income countries. ...

US Government 20th Joint Assessment Report, AG Guidelines, and more

There are many transparency documents that have been published relating to the US Intelligence Community. There are new updates to several key documents, which we have listed and linked below. While admittedly dense reading, these are key privacy-related documents relevant to US Government operations and activities and taken together, are ...

WPF executive director Pam Dixon to present lecture at National Academy of Sciences on the future of data science and privacy

Executive Director Pam Dixon to present a featured lecture at National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine at its Colloquium: The Future of Data Science Pam Dixon’s lecture will be Wednesday October 28 from 12:00-12:45 am Eastern. Looking Ten Years Ahead: Key Converging Technologies in Computing, Data, and Analysis and ...

Africa’s Rising Leadership in Privacy: breaking new ground before and during the COVID-19 crisis

Numerous African countries, having passed new privacy laws during and after the time the GDPR was being negotiated, have broken new ground by advancing privacy thought in new and important ways which stretch past the boundaries of the GDPR and contextualize privacy for African contexts. The COVID-19 crisis represents a major test of some of the new data governance systems.

World Privacy Forum named as a top ten digital identity influencing organization globally 

WPF has been recognized as one of the leading organizations globally influencing privacy, security, inclusion, and fairness in digital identity systems. Goode Intelligence, which produces an annual report on digital identity around the world, has named WPF as a top ten globally influencing organization, as well as ID4Africa, Women in ...

The importance of Doing No Harm: India's plan to create a new national facial recognition database

This coming Friday, the government of India is planning to announce the winner of a Request For Proposals to create a large, national, centralized facial recognition system for law enforcement purposes. The tender for the project outlines an ambitious program of facial surveillance in India utilizing image databases that law ...

WPF and Brookings co-hosting Biometric Roundtable at International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners

The World Privacy Forum and the Brookings Institution will co-host a Biometric Roundtable Wednesday, October 23 at the International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners’ Conference in Tirana, Albania. Cam Kerry of Brookings and Pam Dixon of WPF will co-moderate the discussion. The purpose of the Biometrics Roundtable is to promote ...

Digital Identity Ecosystems

Identity is a data-rich key that acts to unlock all levels of the emerging digital ecosystem. All forms of ID carry some risk, but digital forms of ID, or “dematerialized ID,” cuts across all sectors and generates particularly copious data about people, their behaviors, financial status, associates, and potentially even political and religious views. Over time, distinct patterns emerge from the data and have in the past created new kinds of risks for individuals and groups.....

WPF moderating seminar on GDPR & biometrics in Brussels, Belgium

WPF executive director Pam Dixon will be moderating a seminar to be held by the Biometrics Institute in Brussels, Belgium on 17 April on the topic of implications and implementation of the GDPR. The event will be held at the Office of the Spanish National Research Council, 7th Floor, Room ...

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