Government-issued digital identities and signatures for citizens, businesses and government agencies is an emerging digital trend. Digitally leading countries demonstrate that, for instance, hacker attacks on financial institutions are lower in numbers compared to countries without a central digital identity.
Whereas traditional paper documents only require simple Photoshop skills to forge, it is impossible to do so with a digitally signed document. You cannot make changes to digitally signed documents without breaking the signature; you cannot later deny signing the document, and you can make it confidential to prevent unauthorised access.
Corruption will be more difficult when a document is digitally signed via a browser at home or in the office, instead of at a public servant’s desk. In these digital settings, you do not even see the public servants handling your documents; there is no one to bribe.
The World Economic Forum recommends “Inclusive Deployment of Blockchain for Supply Chains Part 2 – Trustworthy verification of digital identities”, creating a shared digital Global Trade Identity (GTID) for any business and government agency involved in global trade. GTID addresses the cross-border interactions and will make it impossible to forge international trade documents.
