Bhutan’s national self-sovereign digital identity (SSI) system has officially migrated from Hyperledger’s Indy distributed ledger to the Polygon blockchain, achieving a “significant upgrade” in security and performance, the country announced.
With this change, the biometric-based National Digital Identity (NDI) is also changing its protocol layer to CREDEBL, an open-source, decentralized identity and verifiable credential management platform registered by the United Nations-endorsed Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA).
The Himalayan nation of less than a million people made headlines last year by becoming a pioneer in self-sovereign identity, presenting a model for other countries in decentralized, privacy-focused digital identities. The country has recently been discussing how to improve and build trust around the national digital identity while expanding use cases, features, and applications.
Bhutanese authorities announced a month ago the move to Polygon Blockchain and its zero-knowledge protocols, citing the need to improve scalability. The choice fell on Polygon’s architecture, enabled by CREDEBL’s protocol layer, which can support high transaction volumes and meet the need for continued growth without compromising performance, Druk Holding and Investments (DHI) said in a statement.
The state-owned company that runs the national digital identity project added that the move from the Acentrid protocol layer to CREDEBL will help Bhutan adopt global open source security standards and align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
“By leveraging Polygon’s advanced capabilities, we are not only improving the security and scalability of our platform, but also opening new doors for innovation and interoperability within the decentralized identity space,” said Ujjwal Deep Dahal, CEO of DHI.
At a conference in July, government agencies, businesses and the private sector presented solutions to improve digital identity, including the introduction of a voice biometric feature for the visually impaired. NDI also tested an enhanced biometric feature for selfies.
Bhutan has ambitious plans for its digital wallet, explained Jacques Von Benecke, DHI’s technical director. Biometric update in a previous interview. The wallet will serve as a single sign-on feature for government services, enabling data exchange via proof requests and the issuance of verifiable credentials (VCs). It also plans to enable complex proof requests such as know-your-customer (KYC) and cross-border uses.
Article topics
Bhutan | Bhutan NDI | biometrics | blockchain | Credebl | digital identity | Digital Public Goods Alliance DPGA | national identity card | self-sovereign identity
