How digital identity can improve lives in a post-COVID-19 world

  • Date: 14-Jan-2021
  • Source: World Economic Forum
  • Sector:Technology
  • Country:Middle East
  • Who else needs to know?

How digital identity can improve lives in a post-COVID-19 world

Industries from travel to health to education will recover more quickly if solutions once primarily associated with the finance sector are harnessed effectively.

Building trust with citizens around the secure usage of personal data will be key to creating effective frameworks.

Policymakers need to move as quickly as the technology.



The World Travel and Tourism Council predicted in November 2020 that 174 million people could lose their travel-related jobs that year alone due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To re-boot the global economy and re-connect society physically and virtually in a new reality, people will need to engage physically and digitally with public authorities and businesses.

But the potential is bigger: the possibility to safely claim who we are will impact how we live and how fast the world economy can recover - alleviating key risks highlighted in World Economic Forum's COVID-19 Risk Outlooks Report.

Human-centric digital identities are an enabler to alleviate the global risks of health, movement, travel and trade highlighted in the COVID-19 Risks Outlook, May 2020.

The need for trust

The advantages of trusted claims are multiple from binding health tests to an individual being able to enter venues or travel, to relying upon education and work