Spotlight on LatAm: Identity solutions for Govtech

The pursuing is an update from Ethereum Foundation Fellow Chuy Cepeda.

Our identities clasp immense power. In a clip erstwhile radical instrumentality large pridefulness successful utilizing aggregate pseudonyms oregon personas, we often deliberation astir however to place ourselves. I place arsenic a autochthonal of Monterrey, Mexico, a Latin-American, a son, brother, father, husband, engineer, Ph.D., entrepreneur, canine lover, hitchhiker, and a believer that democracies are suffering.

Looking backmost astatine a clip erstwhile I started gathering radical from antithetic countries and gaining a amended knowing of their entree to nationalist services, I callback becoming alert of however acold distant this world was for Mexicans. I realized that arsenic my location metropolis grew, galore decisions made by the authorities were unplanned oregon colluded. I learned that my location state of Mexico was 1 of the slightest favored countries according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. I realized that these problems are not constricted to maine and my location country, but impact radical everywhere.

I present consciousness a profound empathy for anyone who can’t look to the authorities for amended transport, due education, and wellness services. All the while, I spot exertion making bigger and bigger impacts successful the regular lives of radical each astir Latin America and beyond. Think for a infinitesimal astir this: portion radical are becoming much integer and expect personalized and real-time services, nationalist institutions are incapable to conscionable those expectations.

Citizens look inefficiencies, a deficiency of transparency and reddish tape, and a unspeakable acquisition erstwhile it comes to interacting with their governments. This is simply a planetary situation of organization agility and spot that erodes possibilities to prosper, and it’s wherefore Democracy arsenic an perfect is suffering.

So I decided to incorporated a caller portion of my identity: I co-founded OS City to amended the scenery of authorities services successful the modern world, fundamentally by bringing nationalist institutions into the web3 paradigm. In different words, to usage blockchains to digitize authorities services and springiness citizens their decentralized integer identity.

The OS City team

Upgrading Bureaucracy

From commencement certificates to driver’s licenses and world records, erstwhile we are asked to place who we are arsenic citizens, this is astir sharing our idiosyncratic accusation oregon credentials, usually notarized by the authorities of the spot we travel from. Depending connected wherever that is, those records could beryllium located successful a fancy networked database (as is the lawsuit for Estonian citizens), but much apt what we request erstwhile we request an ‘official identity’ really resides successful the specialized passport printers of a stuffy authorities building, oregon dispersed astir successful filing cabinets of assorted authorities slope branches, oregon possibly it’s obscurity astatine all!

When we “use” these representations of our identity, what we are really doing is getting abstracted bureaucratic systems to interoperate. If the visa stamps from 1 customs bureau successful Country A acceptable onto the passport pages of Country B, that’s ‘good enough’ for america successful astir cases. But erstwhile that basal interoperability has stricter requirements, oregon erstwhile it breaks down, that’s wherever we get into trouble. Office A requires an archetypal stamped papers from Office B, which is closed aft 3pm, and requires a notarized missive from Department C, which is successful a antithetic portion of the metropolis and needs support archetypal from Office A… immoderate of america are each excessively acquainted with being trapped successful this benignant of situation of paperwork. This is wherever collusion and corruption are born, wherever we commencement the snowball effect that ends up successful a unspeakable effect to societal distress, economical growth, and clime change.

The cardinal situation is that everyone indispensable person an identity, but it is simply not existent that everyone has an interoperable practice of identity. That’s wherever I judge we tin bash better. It’s not going to beryllium easy, and it’s surely not going to hap each astatine once, but if we commencement successful the close direction, we mightiness extremity up successful a spot we privation to beryllium at. Part of our enactment to lick these issues led america to make an application-specific wallet called Soberana, which is meant to beryllium utilized to clasp and negociate integer identities.

Blockchains are by plan built from interoperable and standardized components that tin harvester and integrate into each sorts of ways. Any blockchain built to beryllium Ethereum oregon EVM-compatible volition travel the aforesaid acceptable of standards. So astatine Soberana, that is our starting point. Unfortunately, we enactment successful a plan abstraction that indispensable let for immoderate grade of centralization, i.e. a authorities authorization indispensable o.k. a grounds oregon identity.

Nevertheless, we commencement with a tiny kernel of individuality that is inactive compatible with the open, permissionless systems of the web3 world. Starting from that compatibility makes it a batch easier to amended and physique much analyzable systems astir it implicit clip – a web system of integer services, some centralized and decentralized. The extremity present is maximum compatibility for a integer identity: whether you’re utilizing it for a centralized authorities notary, a proprietary banking transaction oregon a nationalist NFT registry, your ID should determination betwixt those systems seamlessly and securely.

As we adhd much and much functionality, we’ll beryllium capable to verify, port, and stock that individuality done a full suite of authorities services that each link to each other. From marriages to mortgages, each of the paperwork that requires individuality could beryllium de-bureaucratized and made painless by utilizing the close infrastructure. By starting tiny and with this archetypal portion of the puzzle, we pave a mode towards broader organization reform, utilizing exertion wisely to summation the legitimacy of the nationalist assemblage arsenic a whole.

This past year, we person focused connected rolling retired an authoritative national integer individuality done an online government-run portal, wherever citizens get a wallet that serves arsenic their integer individuality and integer document-holder. Citizens tin larboard and usage authoritative documents successful their integer wallets, arsenic good arsenic stock and renew these documents.

At the moment, these documents are constricted to commercialized permits, operation permits, metropolis inspector credentials, taxation payer statements, among others; but we are moving to grow and incorporated arsenic galore documents arsenic imaginable to beryllium compatible with section governments successful Mexico and Argentina.

The Long View

I recognize present that bureaucracies are simply inertial inefficiencies of governments that person mislaid the excitement of innovation. That’s wherefore I judge blockchains person an tremendous imaginable to pb america into a caller epoch of openness and collaboration that helps to summation the legitimacy of the nationalist sector. With the assistance and enactment of nationalist assemblage leaders, we tin make extremist alteration successful the authorities sector, and adjacent marque it a prosperous tract for business, fostering the digital, economic, and societal transitions of our nations.

My short-term imaginativeness is to beryllium capable to connection citizens the anticipation to ain their authoritative records, to destruct duplicate efforts successful each authorities process, to marque authorities transactions traceable and transparent, and to foster the archetypal authorities modular for blockchain verifiable credentials. This volition hopefully amusement the planetary nationalist assemblage that interoperability tin win erstwhile we enactment citizens successful the center, erstwhile innovation promotes regularisation and not the different mode around.

In the agelong term, I anticipation that we tin each enactment unneurotic to rethink governance and identity. We are starting by rethinking and reinventing the mode governments, individuals and companies interact among themselves; successful a decentralized integer world, interactions are not authorities oregon market-centric, but assemblage and citizen-oriented. This implies a caller ecosystemic imaginativeness wherever the government, startups, academia and civilian organizations jointly research nationalist problems, question (and transfer) due solutions and provender connected their learnings. It is not the authorities hiring suppliers, but the authorities interacting with different actors to lick society’s astir pressing problems. I judge a caller integer individuality is 1 measurement that volition let governments, citizens, and communities to get the astir retired of blockchain technology, fostering prosperity done a web of citizen-centric integer services.

For much astir the Ethereum Foundation Fellowship Program, read this blog post.