Alan Turing Institute, a UK-based AI research organization, announced that it has been granted $4 million by the Gates Foundation for digital ID implementation.
The grant is designed to “help countries address requirements needed to achieve secure, private, and trustworthy digital public infrastructure (DPI), enabling residents to access public and private services such as healthcare, education, finance, and social protection,” according to the institute.
The project, which will run for the next three years, will focus on mitigating digital risks, facilitating cross-border trade, implementing secure, private data sharing, and contributing to countries’ assessments of digital identity systems.
According to the specific project’s page, the grant will ensure “responsible” implementation of digital ID.
Such implementation “enables access to services and enactment of civil rights,” the project’s description reads.
Last year, Michael Weigand, the director of Financial Services for the Poor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, declared that the foundation is pushing toward “financial inclusion” via “digital public infrastructure (DPI).”
“This concept (…) underpins inclusive financial systems. Foundational DPI is based on three core, interoperable components: digital identity (ID), payments and data exchange. In practice, this gives countries and people the ability to digitally verify identities, securely and instantly send and receive money, and safely exchange information,” he wrote in The Banker.
“Financial inclusion” is advertised as equity within banking systems, supposedly designed to combat poverty.
