Dominican Republic. HID Global is promoting the adoption of mobile identifications in Latin America, since some nations in the region are already leading pilot projects for the implementation of this type of solutions; in this way, Latin America joins the rest of the regions that are evaluating such procedures to facilitate the identification process for their citizens.
"Currently, what we observe in regions such as Latin America is the search for functional solutions to identify citizens and that at the same time allow the authorities to validate, through a cell phone, the authenticity of physical documents presented by anyone," explains Jorge Castrillo, sales director of government solutions of HID Global for Latin America and the Caribbean.
It is worth saying that the purpose of virtual documents is not to replace physical credentials, but the identification of people is migrating more and more towards the digital world; even in different regions of the world there are many implementation experiences that are in the pilot phase, which shows the interest of governments to enter this new era, such is the case of the United States and its driver's licenses.
Beyond driver's licenses
But the digitization of documents is not limited to driver's licenses or identification cards, as it also reaches national passports. An example of this is Tanzania, where HID Global was in charge of issuing the country's emergency passports and everything related to the enclosure and personalization system. Thanks to the work carried out in this African nation, any Tanzanian citizen who loses his passport will be able to request the Government of his country to issue him an emergency virtual passport, which he will have to present to the consular entity so that they can read this document and ratify the identity of the bearer to grant him a safe conduct that allows him to make his return trip.
But while it is true that the entry into the digital world is unstoppable, Castrillo assures that governments are reluctant to implement virtual technologies, something that is due to ignorance or lack of a total understanding of the benefits of this methodology. "This is understandable because we have been emphasizing the security of physical IDs for many years. However, when states begin to understand how the virtual document works, that is when they recognize the meaning of this kind of credentials," adds the executive.
There are still some doubts and misgivings related to what happens if the user's phone does not have a battery, "the answer is: the same thing happens when we leave the wallet at home; this means that there are certain limitations in all the technologies we use," he concludes.
