More than 1.5bn digital identity wallets will be in use worldwide by 2029, storing approximately 30% of all digital credentials issued by government and commercial entities, according to a Goode Intelligence forecast.

In all, more than 4.9bn digital identities will be in use by the end of the decade with the emergence of digital identity systems that use biometrics, digital identity wallets, verifiable credentials and public-key cryptography being the key technologies driving growth, the forecasters say.

“There is definitely the collective will to fix the problems that we currently have for digital identity including lack of availability, little interoperability between digital identity schemes, slowness for governments to establish digital identity schemes and competing business interests,” the research firm’s founder Alan Goode explains.

“By the end of this decade, it is safe to say that our proof of identity will be largely digitised with over 4.9bn digital identities in use by 2029. Like cash, it will not mean the end of paper and plastic identities. These will still be issued and used when we cross a border or have to provide proof of permission to drive a motor vehicle, or where regulation requires a paper document for verification.

“Since the first edition of this report was published in 2019 there have been fundamental shifts in the need for people to identify themselves digitally. Covid-19 has accelerated trends for the need for citizens, employees, travellers, patients and consumers to have a reusable, verified, digital representation of who we are and what we can do.”

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