As more countries adopt the concept of digital identity, regulators are keen to showcase their plans and successes. But what do businesses think about this shift? To find out, Regula, a global developer of forensic devices and identity verification (IDV) solutions, commissioned a study to survey companies across different regions and industries to get a sense of their readiness, concerns, and expectations for digital identities.

Digital identity is considered to be a way to improve the efficiency and security of services, reduce fraud, and enhance access to public services, ensuring that they are delivered quickly and to the right people. A digital ID is an online representation of an individual, which contains personal information, credentials, and attributes used to establish and authenticate identity in digital spaces. As such, digital identity is already a well-recognized concept in different sectors.

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Perception. According to the Forrester Consulting study “The New Imperative: Digital IDs,” 81% of large and enterprise-level companies from the Aviation, Banking, Government, IT, and Telecom sectors have at least a basic awareness of this technology, with almost half possessing a thorough understanding. Moreover, some countries and sectors, primarily those with advanced digital infrastructures and regulatory frameworks, as well as high customer online interaction frequencies, have already made a leap towards its adoption.

Implementation. Currently, 42% of organizations worldwide are actively integrating digital ID technologies into their systems, and 31% are in the early stages of implementation. Another 17% of respondents are now developing a strategic plan to begin this transformation.

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The United Arab Emirates shows higher integration rates, where the majority of businesses (54%) have already moved to active integration. At the same time, places with stricter regulations, such as the US and Europe, are taking a more cautious approach, with only 37% and 39% of companies respectively claiming to be at the integration stage.

“As the Forrester experts note in the study, the complexities and disparities of global implementation across various landscapes highlight the strategic necessity of adopting a hybrid approach to digital IDs. Moreover, there is no single, universally accepted set of global standards for digital IDs that applies across all countries and sectors. Therefore, the large number of companies at the stage of active implementation demonstrates a growing need for frameworks and guidelines that aim to foster interoperability, security, and privacy across different digital ID systems. The good news is that several international organizations and standards bodies — New Technology Working Group in the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), etc. — are working towards those standards. This seems to be a case in which slow and steady wins the race,” said Ihar Kliashchou, Chief Technology Officer at Regula.