The best digital ID gives citizens the right not to use it

When we were working to expand the Maldives’ eFaas from a government login service into a national digital identity platform, I met a senior minister whose response stayed with me.

He supported the idea. But he had one condition. 

He would not use digital identity himself, and the system should leave room for people who made the same choice.

His request was reasonable. It also exposed a gap in how we judge this work. 

Most programmes, ours included, track registrations, authentication transactions and the number of services connected. Few track whether citizens still have a real choice.

High adoption can demonstrate a system’s reach. It does not tell you whether citizens had a choice.

When convenience becomes compulsion

In a country spread across atolls, the case for digital identity is easy to make. 

For someone living several islands away from the nearest government office, submitting a form can mean a speedboat or ferry, a day off work and sometimes a night away from home. Digital identity removes that journey and the repeated paperwork that comes with it.

The trouble starts quietly. Each new service that depends on the platform makes it a little harder to live without. 

A convenient way to log in becomes the expected way, and then the only practical way, to deal with government, open a bank account or prove eligibility for a benefit.

Digital identity becomes compulsory in practice long before it becomes compulsory in law.

Some people do not own a smartphone.

Some cannot get through facial verification. Some distrust digital surveillance, and some simply prefer to deal with a person at a counter. None of them should lose access to public services because of it.

The right to refuse digital identity is not a right to avoid identification, but the right to reach essential services through another legitimate channel. 

Inclusion has to cover people who make that choice, not only those we help get online.

Between state control and individual sovereignty

National digital identity programmes tend to lean one of two ways. 

Digital public infrastructure (DPI) puts government at the centre; it brings coordination and scale, but it concentrates enormous power over personal information. 

Self-sovereign identity gives individuals control through digital wallets and decentralised verification. It often struggles with institutional trust, usability, and implementation capacity.

Small states feel both weaknesses more sharply. We need the coordination that public infrastructure provides, but we cannot afford to make one institution the gatekeeper to every transaction. 

Nor can we assume a decentralised model will work without strong institutions behind it.

Citizen-as-a-Platform (CaaP)

This is why I developed Citizen-as-a-Platform (CaaP). 

Government provides the trusted foundations of digital identity. Citizens get more control over how their credentials are used, who can see their data and how that access is checked.

Picture a citizen opening a bank account. Under CaaP, rather than handing over her entire identity record, she would share a verified credential carrying only what the bank needs. 

If a government agency later accesses her records, she would be able to see which agency accessed them, when, why and under what legal authority. 

Where access depends on her consent, she could withdraw it for future use. Where the law allows access without consent, transparency matters more, not less.

The building blocks already exist: verifiable credentials, digital wallets, selective disclosure and access logging. The harder challenge is governance.

Who decides which institutions can request information? Who investigates misuse? What happens when a citizen contests an access record? And can someone obtain an essential service without using the platform at all? 

CaaP lets these questions shape the architecture, rather than leaving them as policy details to address after deployment.

Lessons from four countries

My research examines Estonia, Singapore, India and the Maldives. 

Estonia shows how citizens can see who accesses their information. Singapore demonstrates what sustained institutional capacity can achieve. 

India’s Aadhaar shows the potential of digital identity at scale, and the cost when authentication failures and exclusion hit vulnerable people.

The Maldives provides a different perspective. Our eFaas platform has become important national infrastructure. 

Yet public concerns around biometric verification, together with a separate incident involving possible misuse of national identity card information, have shown how questions of trust can extend beyond any single application.

Small states have an opportunity here. They can build governance protections while their systems are still adaptable, rather than waiting until millions of transactions and hundreds of dependencies make change difficult.

Five principles for governments

Governance before scale. Put enforceable rights and independent oversight in place before the country comes to depend on the platform.

Transparency by default. Citizens should see who accessed their data, and governments should publish how the system operates.

Architecture encodes values. Where data sits and who can observe transactions decide who holds power.

Inclusion requires choice. Offline and assisted channels must deliver essential services without penalising the people who use them.

Legitimacy requires participation. Citizens need a real say in the rules for infrastructure that increasingly mediates their relationship with the state.

The next measure of success

I have argued before in GovInsider that digital consent is breaking down. Better consent screens will not fix that if the relationship between government and citizen stays the same.

The next generation of digital identity should be judged on more than usage. 

Can citizens see who accessed their information? Can they exercise meaningful control? Can an independent authority hold the system accountable? Can someone who refuses digital identity still receive the public services to which they are entitled?

The strongest identity system is not one that makes itself impossible to avoid. It is one that earns participation through trust while protecting those who choose differently.

My research, Citizen-as-a-Platform: Governing Digital Identity Through Transparency and Choice, published by Springer Nature, develops the framework, its reference architecture and lessons for small island and developing states.

-------------------------------------------
 
Mohamed Shareef is a former Minister of State for Environment, Climate Change and Technology in the Maldives (2021-2023). He previously served as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology (2019-2021) and as Chief Information Officer at the National Centre for Information Technology (2009-2014), where he led the development of the country's national digital public infrastructure. He has also worked in academia, including as a researcher at the United Nations University. He currently serves as Senior Advisor for Digital Transformation at Nexia Maldives.