IOM Releases a Digital Identity Toolkit
An IOM team accompanied in August 2022 a session to issue birth certificate and grant the right to identity to children | Alejandro Cartagena / IOM 2022
Digital identity plays a key role in modern governance. It speeds up and secures identity verification, reduces fraud, and improves access to services and legal recognition.
Used to reliably prove a person's identity, it supports many areas of daily life, including healthcare, banking, education, travel, and public services. In immigration and border management, digital identity helps simplify procedures, enhance security, and safeguard individual rights.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has launched the Digital Identity Toolkit. This toolkit, funded by the Netherlands through the COMPASS programme, helps countries understand and use digital identity systems. It focuses on privacy, security, and human rights.
The toolkit offers simple, flexible ways to issue identity documents with digital features, both online and on paper. It helps policymakers and workers build safe and fair identity systems that respect people's dignity and rights.
Legal Identity is deeply interconnected with protection areas such as counter-trafficking, child protection, return and reintegration, and more.
A secure and verifiable legal identity helps prevent exploitation by reducing the risk of identity fraud and statelessness, which are often exploited by traffickers. In child protection, birth registration ensures a child’s legal existence and access to services, safeguarding them from abuse, neglect, or illegal adoption.
For individuals returning or reintegrating into their countries of origin, legal identity is crucial for accessing rights, services, and support systems, enabling sustainable reintegration and reducing vulnerability to re-trafficking or marginalization.
For more information please contact aboronbaeva@iom.int or legalidentityhq@iom.int