The report was commissioned by Women in Identity as part of the development of their ID Code of Conduct. It builds on earlier empirical work that identified the human impact of identity exclusion and complements this with insights from participants from the identity industry around the world.
A total of forty-five typically hour-long interviews were conducted with participants from around the world and representing various key stages of the identity supply chain. The interviews were transcribed and analysed for key themes and insights including the need for a business case for addressing identity inclusion, consideration of various excluded groups as well as narratives for inclusion by both the public and private sector. Consideration was given to the challenges associated with improving the identity proofing and civil registration systems. Participants also discussed issues associated with addressing identity exclusion at the authentication stage of identity journeys. Technological developments including artificial intelligence, digital identity wallets, mobile driving licences and digital public infrastructures raised additional potential business costs associated with identity exclusion.
Many examples of work that is typically hidden from traditional cost benefit analyses were presented alongside more innovative approaches to addressing identity exclusion. Finally, a set of additional issues including the relationship between states and municipalities and novel reputational risks were raised. These are complemented with various resources that organisations draw on to help with this task.
While identity exclusion is often seen as a challenging business cost for supporting the identity excluded, this report proposes to reframe the issue from one of dealing with individuals who are on an unhappy path in an identity transaction to the positive steps that can be taken to widen the happy path instead.
Widening the happy path is not without its challenges, not least because many organisations lack the decision space to think differently about identity inclusion and even when they do, often lack detailed examples of what their peer (and competitor) organisations are achieving in this space. This report provides detailed examples of the range of activities that are typically undertaken to deal with the identity excluded and which can be reappropriated to make identity more inclusive, ideally when developing new services but also when refreshing existing identity services and processes.
The investment and growth decisions that organisations undertake to make widening the happy path a strategic objective can help them focus on the economic value of being more identity inclusive. To help them on this journey, the report makes ten key recommendations for the further development of the ID Code of Conduct:
- Resolve to make addressing identity exclusion an explicit objective of the organisation
- Reform identity proofing standards
- Review alternative support opportunities that can assist with identity exclusion
- Restructure birth and death registration processes to be more inclusive
- Rectify issues that arise because of the history of the identity organisation
- Respond to the opportunities that new technological developments offer
- Revise workflows to address the costs of change
- Realign with evolving consumer attitudes to identity exclusion
- Recognise all the hidden work associated with making identity inclusive
- Reuse insights from existing approaches to inclusion from other sectors