Bhutan says digital transformation need not compromise citizen trust

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Last year, Bhutan made headlines for launching the world’s first decentralised, self-sovereign national identity platform, known as NDI.

“The world previously didn’t look to Bhutan as an innovator of digital solutions. In fact, we were looking to Singapore, India and Estonia [with their national identities],” says GovTech Bhutan’s Secretary, Jigme Tenzing, to GovInsider.

The small Himalayan nation was close to adapting Estonia’s eID to function as its national identity platform but decided to walk its own path based on the values it has set around digital governance: to safeguard the privacy and trust of citizens, he shares.

World’s first decentralised national digital ID

In Bhutan’s system, the government issues verifiable credentials as a set of decentralised identifiers which are verified using blockchain. These credentials could include education certificates, healthcare records, and other relevant data.

The NDI system is a digital identity framework that facilitates secure and trustworthy digital interactions between the government, individuals, and the private sector.

When third parties like banks or insurers request access to the data, citizens can choose to enable or deny access.

“This makes it more difficult for bad actors to consolidate information about the population, as they would have to individually hack every device to collect that information,” he explains.

Tenzing adds that for a small country, a decentralised system also frees up resources that would otherwise be needed to protect centralised repositories.

It is key to note that decentralised credentials do not replace governments as issuing authorities, highlighted UK’s Government Digital Service’s founding member, Richard Pope, in his book titled Platformland.

“Governments still need to maintain their records of what credentials have been issued and why,” Pope explained.

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Innovation advantage of small countries

The GovTech team is just under two years old and was formed to coordinate whole-of-government digital transformation efforts as well as to optimise these efforts for the benefit of citizens, says Tenzing.

Tenzing notes that government IT personnel had to rescope their role to adapt the whole-of-government IT strategy to address the specific needs their agencies face.

He adds that as a small country, Bhutan has the advantage of flexibility and agility, presenting an opportunity for the GovTech team to test new innovative digital approaches.

Tenzing talks about the country’s Electronic Patient Information System, another key milestone achieved by his team. Launched last April, the system has already been onboarded by 49 out of 54 hospitals in the country.

According to The Bhutanese, the patient data management system allows doctors to access patient records, schedule appointments and treatment plans, as well as refer patients to another hospital in a different district.

Doctors can also update the digital records remotely outside the hospital.

During Covid-19, the team led by Tenzing rolled out multiple systems and apps to manage the pandemic in just two weeks.

Some of these included an app to monitor quarantined individuals remotely, a real-time geospatial map and dashboard to display the distribution of Covid-19 patients across the country, and more, according to a report by Bhutan’s Ministry of Health.

Different public sector employees were digitally trained to manage these systems, including health workers, who learnt how to enter clinical data online, and the Royal Bhutan Police, who carried out surveillance among interdistrict travelers.

Single window, reduced touchpoints as next steps

The national digital government strategy released in May 2024 focuses on digital governance, digital economy and society.

Tenzing shares that the team is on its way to consolidating all government services in a single window.

As there is an “opportunity to look at services horizontally across government,” the team is also exploring the possibility of minimising the operating systems needed for the government to function at its best.

These refer to systems or touchpoints that civil servants are interacting with to serve citizens. He believes that reducing these touchpoints can help to drive efficiency.

He shares that Bhutan is close to 100 per cent in terms of mobile connectivity, but affordability remains a concern. Bhutan Broadcasting recently reported that the government is planning to work with telecom operators to reduce charges by 50 per cent this year.

Highlighting the high youth migration out of Bhutan due to a lack of jobs, he adds that the government has targeted initiatives to support businesses in the emerging technology space to address unemployment.

These technologies include cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), software development and more.

The digital economy also helps local businesses reach out and tap into larger overseas markets, he adds.

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Capacity building to harness benefits of digital

As the country strengthens its digital infrastructure, Tenzing shares that the team also aims to help society become more adept to harness the benefits of digital transformation.

“What we are also seeing is that there are some negatives with digital transformation and a lot of concerns of fragmentations in society. So, we are also exploring opportunities to use digital capabilities to strengthen communities... such as to encourage volunteering and community work,” he says.

As the country has a high social media penetration rate (90 per cent as of 2022), the Bhutan government has actively tapped on social media platforms.

The government even has a comprehensive social media policy that sets a basic standard for the government to use social media to share information and collaborate with users on public policy and design.

Digital literacy involves both training users on technology competency, as well as how they can safely navigate the digital space, he says, citing the benefits and threats brought about by AI.

Tenzing shares that the government measures the success of its digital initiatives with metrics such as citizen satisfaction with government services as well as internal cost savings.