Tony Blair wants everyone to have a Digital ID

The BBC just interviewed Tony Blair.

Who?

Oh yea, some politician from the last century. The interview is quite interesting, particularly the point that, when Mr Blair stood down, Britain had been led by just three people over 28 years. Now the country has just moved onto their sixth prime minister in eight years. Interestingly, it was eight years ago that the country voted for Brexit. Political instability is not a good indicator for economic stability.

This is one key area of focus for the former Prime Minister (PM). The other is surprisingly technology, and that there is a Tony Blair Institute for Global Change that focuses on this area.

The main area the Institute is discussing is artificial intelligence (AI), and that we are living through a technology revolution greater in consequence than previous industrial revolutions. The former Prime Minister believes that AI will change everything everywhere. Truth. But then his key question is whether any political leader in modern politics understands, masters and can harness the technology revolution?

Good question.

The answer is obviously to have more technologists in government circles and dialogue, and that’s what Blair is promoting. But promoting and delivering and executing are different discussions. Is Blair all just talk?

The BBC notes that “he is sometimes criticised for talking in generalities or abstractions about technology rather than specifics, but this overlooks the many detailed policy recommendations his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has made. This think tank works in over 40 countries, advising governments, they say, on policy, delivery and strategy. Prime among them: a digital ID, kept in a personalised digital wallet for each person to control who it is shared with.”

So, I immediately jumped onto his website and found a white paper all about digital identity, which quite surprised me as, a year ago, his Institute published this paper:

The Great Enabler: Transforming the Future of Britain’s Public Services Through Digital Identity

Here is a small section:

“In the UK today, there are more than 190 different ways for people to set up accounts to interact with local and national government services, and 44 different sign-in methods. Many people don’t know which personal information about them is held by local and national governments, how it is being used or how secure it is. There is no way for individuals to control how information is shared between different parts of government.

“By contrast, well-designed digital infrastructure would give people control of their data, make it easier and quicker to prove their eligibility for needed services and, in turn, allow those services to be personalised to individual needs. This digital infrastructure would need to be developed and delivered in close collaboration with the private sector and civil society.

“It would include multiple components:

• A single digital wallet
• Multiple secure, verifiable digital credentials, such as a digital driving licence, that would be stored in and accessed via this wallet

“The wallet could be used to gain access to personal data held in various parts of government. People could also use it to agree to privately and securely share data to produce collective aggregated data sets that could be used to draw insights about all sorts of government functions and services.”

The thing here is that I totally agree with what Mr. Blair’s Institute proposes, for a change, and really wish we could get government, banks and corporations to work together to deliver this vision. That’s another story (more on this later).