FZ 09

I keep seeing the same idea repeated in rooms that should know better: a country needs to build a digital identity system, as if nothing meaningful exists yet. As if identity begins the moment a database is deployed. As if history, institutions, and lived systems can be ignored in favor of a clean, technical reset. I understand the appeal. Starting from zero sounds efficient. It promises clarity, speed, and control. But the truth I keep coming back to is simpler and more uncomfortable: identity was never missing. The real question has always been whether it is coherent.

When I look at any country, I don’t see an absence of identity. I see layers. I see civil registries, voter lists, tax records, telecom data, banking KYC processes, health systems, school enrollments, social protection databases. Each of these holds a fragment of identity, shaped by a specific purpose and governed by a different institution. None of them started yesterday. Each one carries its own logic, its own incentives, and its own limitations. Together, they form a fragmented but very real identity landscape.

The problem is not that identity doesn’t exist. The problem is that it doesn’t line up.

I’ve realized that when people talk about “building a digital ID,” what they often mean is creating a single, unified layer that brings order to this fragmentation. But even that framing can be misleading. Because it suggests replacement instead of alignment. It suggests that what exists is broken beyond repair, rather than acknowledging that it is incomplete, overlapping, and sometimes contradictory.

What actually needs to happen is much harder than building something new. It requires making sense of what already exists.

I’ve seen how institutions guard their data, not out of malice, but out of responsibility and habit. A tax authority thinks in terms of compliance and revenue. A health system thinks in terms of patients and outcomes. A telecom operator thinks in terms of subscribers and usage. Each system defines identity differently because each system serves a different goal. Expecting them to collapse into a single definition overnight is unrealistic. But leaving them disconnected creates friction that people feel every day.

That friction shows up in small but important ways. A person who exists in one system may not exist in another. A name might be spelled differently across records. An address might be outdated in one database and current in another. A person might be eligible for a service but unable to prove it because the relevant data sits in a silo that cannot be accessed or trusted by another institution.

This is where coherence matters.

For me, coherence doesn’t mean uniformity. It doesn’t mean forcing every system to look the same or to store the same data. It means creating a way for these systems to relate to each other reliably. It means establishing trust between institutions so that when one system asserts something about an individual, another system can understand and, when appropriate, accept it.

I think of coherence as a kind of translation layer. It allows different parts of the state, and sometimes the private sector, to speak about identity in a way that is consistent enough to be useful, without erasing the differences that make each system functional.

What makes this challenging is that coherence is not purely a technical problem. It is institutional, political, and social. It requires agreements about standards, governance, and accountability. It requires clarity about who is responsible for what, and under which conditions data can be shared or verified. It requires trust, not just between systems, but between people and the institutions that manage their identity.

Technology can help, but it cannot substitute for these foundations.

I’ve noticed that the “build from zero” mindset often underestimates this. It assumes that if you deploy the right platform, everything else will fall into place. But in reality, a new system has to integrate into an existing environment. It has to earn trust. It has to align with laws, processes, and expectations that were shaped long before it existed.

Ignoring that context doesn’t simplify the problem. It delays it.

There’s also a deeper issue with the idea of starting from scratch. I think it risks erasing the institutional memory embedded in existing systems. These systems, for all their flaws, reflect years or decades of policy decisions, operational realities, and human behavior. They contain lessons about what works and what doesn’t. Treating them as irrelevant can lead to repeating the same mistakes in a new form.

I’ve come to believe that the most effective approach is not to build a digital identity system as a standalone product, but to cultivate an identity ecosystem. One that recognizes existing systems as participants rather than obstacles. One that focuses on interoperability, verifiability, and governance rather than just data collection.

In this kind of ecosystem, identity is not a single record stored in a single place. For me, it becomes a network of assertions that can be made, verified, and used across contexts. A person doesn’t need to be redefined every time they interact with a new service. Instead, their existing attributes can be referenced, with appropriate safeguards, to enable access and decision-making.

This changes the role of a “digital ID” from being a monolithic database to being an enabling layer. I see it as a way to connect, not to replace.

I find that this perspective also shifts how I think about progress. Success is not measured by how quickly a new system is deployed, but by how effectively existing systems begin to work together. It’s not about the size of a database, but about the reduction of friction in real interactions. Can a person access services more easily? Can institutions make decisions more accurately? Can trust be maintained while efficiency improves?

These are harder questions to answer, but they are the ones that matter.

I don’t think the fantasy of starting from zero will disappear anytime soon. It’s too appealing, especially in environments where existing systems are messy or outdated. But I also think there is a growing recognition that coherence, not creation, is the real challenge.

For me, identity has always been there, scattered across systems, shaped by institutions, and experienced by people in their daily lives. The task is not to invent it, but to make it make sense.

And I know that requires patience, humility, and a willingness to engage with complexity rather than avoid it.@SignOfficial #SignDigitalSovereignInfra $SIGN