In its latest pursuit to build a secure form of blockchain solution, Microsoft has pledged its support to ID2020 in partnership with Accenture and others. The ID2020 Alliance, a public-private partnership committed to solving the challenges of identity faced by more than 1.1 billion people around the world, improving lives through digital identity.
Microsoft pledges support for ID2020 Alliance
The idea stems from the lack of legal documentation of individuals which not only strips them from getting access to critical services but also puts those trapped in the “identity gap” at risk of displacement and activities like child trafficking.
Today, we are excited to share that we are deepening our commitment to this issue by formally joining ID2020 as a founding member. In addition to a donation of $1 million, we will commit resources and expertise to further develop a secure, portable form of digital identity and help implement it across governments and agencies, wrote Peggy Johnson – Executive Vice President, Business Development on Official Microsoft Blog page.
In the coming months, Microsoft, our partners in the ID2020 Alliance, and developers around the globe will collaborate on an open source, self-sovereign, blockchain-based identity system that allows people, products, apps and services to interoperate across blockchains, cloud providers and organizations. We will lend the technical expertise of our Identity team to provide guidance as the project scales, empowering people with direct consent over who has access to their personal information, and when to release and share data. We will also help establish standards that ensure this work is impactful and scalable, he further added.
Microsoft believes, amid a growing refugee crisis technology can play a transforming role. It can be used as a powerful tool to tackle the challenge of the identity crisis. As such, the company has joined hands with Accenture and Avanade on a blockchain-based identity prototype on Microsoft Azure. Soon, the partners will start piloting this solution jointly to those who need it most, beginning with refugee populations.
