Canada’s Digital ID Future – A Federated Approach
Countries around the world are crossing the electronic frontier and exploring the benefits of integrating digital identity systems. With the growing number of Canadians accessing services and businesses online and the increased usage of mobile phones, Canada is in a position to move forward with a more robust digital identity system. In this brief, we highlight why Canada needs a digital identity system, how other countries have made progress in this area and the lessons we can learn from those experiences to build a system in Canada.
Identity is the representation of who you are. A person’s identity is composed of different attributes such as name, date of birth, address and citizenship. Historically, the way we established our identity is through physical documents (e.g. driver’s license, passport, ID card), sometimes supplemented with some form of physical verification (typically a signature).