Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is investing a staggering $200 million in projects that seek to track the public’s individual movements through digital IDs.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has increased its investment in digital ID projects through part of a $1.27 billion package.
The foundation said the package aims to support “global health and development projects.”
$200 million of the $1.27B funding will go to digital public infrastructure, including civil registry databases and digital ID systems.
The announcement followed the annual “Goalkeepers Report.”
The report is an annual assessment of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN SGD).
The UN set a goal (goal 16.9) for a global legal identity by 2030.
However, the report said that the world will not make that deadline.
To achieve that goal, digital identity programs are supposedly needed.
The 2019 Goalkeepers Report touted biometrics as one of the technologies needed for the equitable redistribution of resources in developing nations.
The $200 million will also support data sharing systems and interoperable payment systems.
The Gates Foundation supports several digital ID-related programs, including the MOSIP, an open-source digital ID platform.
As Slay News recently reported, the government of Canada has just announced that it is working on a new federal “Digital Identity Program” after partnering with Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum (WEF).
Canada joins the Dutch government in developing a global digital ID system in partnership with the WEF.
The program seeks to create digital proof-of-identity documents for all citizens that are logged in a system used by airports, authorities, and government agencies.
Details about the development of a federal “Digital Identity Program” were revealed in the Canadian government’s “Canada’s Digital Ambition 2022” report.
“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for government services to be accessible and flexible in the digital age,” the report published by the government reads.
“The next step in making services more convenient to access is a federal Digital Identity Program, integrated with pre-existing provincial platforms.
“Digital identity is the electronic equivalent of a recognized proof-of-identity document (for example, a driver’s license or passport) and confirms that ‘you are who you say you are’ in a digital context.”
For the digital ID program, Canada is partnering with the WEF.
The WEF’s program is called “Known Traveler Digital Identity,” which the organization boasts is “the first global collaboration of its kind.”
“The Known Traveller Digital Identity, or KTDI, is a World Economic Forum initiative that brings together a global consortium of individuals, governments, authorities, and the travel industry to enhance security in world travel,” the WEF’s “Known Traveler Digital Identity” website says.
“The pilot group, convened by the World Economic Forum, consists of the Government of Canada and the Netherlands, Air Canada, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Montreal-Trudeau International Airport, Toronto Pearson International Airport, and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol,” the website notes.
Slay News reported in August that Big Tech giant Google has also rolled out an update for its Wallet app that includes support for the “Digital Identity Program” that’s being pushed by the WEF.
Google Wallet, which was updated in May to replace Google Pay, allows people to use their smartphones in place of cash, credit and debit cards, event tickets, and travel boarding passes.
Among those new features includes support for a digital ID, health passes, and more.
