Digital wallet pilot in December! The Digital Development Department promotes digital identity integration, hoping banks and convenience stores will join.

The Ministry of Digital Development (MIDD) actively promotes the "Digital Wallet" project, which aims to integrate digital identity certificates such as the ID of natural persons of the Ministry of the Interior, the business certificate of the Ministry of Economy, and the driver's license of the Ministry of Transport into mobile phones, so that people do not have to carry a bunch of physical documents with them. In December this year, the pilot version of the digital wallet is expected to be launched, and it has begun to negotiate cooperation with various ministries and private industries, hoping that banks, insurance companies, and even supermarkets can participate to jointly create a more convenient digital identity verification environment.

How does the digital wallet work? The phone becomes a "mobile ID wallet"

In traditional physical wallets, ID cards, health insurance cards, driver's licenses and other documents are usually stored, and when identity verification is required, they have to rummage and present. However, in the digital age, there is still a risk of personal leakage in the way these paper documents are used, such as excessive disclosure of unnecessary information.

The concept of digital wallets is like a virtual document folder, which can store various digital identity certificates into mobile phones, and if natural person credentials, health insurance cards, etc. can be successfully integrated in the future, people only need to carry mobile phones, they can complete identity verification, without worrying about loss or additional physical documents.

Open Source! The Digital Development Department emphasizes transparency and security.

In order to gain public trust in the digital wallet project, which involves personal data and security issues, Zhuang Yingzhi, director of the Digital International Department of the Ministry of Digital Development, stressed that the code will be fully disclosed to ensure that the outside world can review how the system works. He said this had two main purposes:

Ensure that the operation of digital wallets does not infringe on human rights and avoid concerns about the abuse of personal information.

After strict security detection and vulnerability check, after the code is opened, it can also be jointly reviewed by the technical community, and if there are problems, they can be corrected in time to further improve security.

In response to doubts about whether the public code will increase the risk of hacker attacks, Zhuang Yingzhi responded that if the system has vulnerabilities, hackers will find out sooner or later, instead of letting the problem ferment quietly, it is better to take the initiative to disclose and gather community forces to strengthen security protection.

Multiple application scenarios, priority is given to the integration of natural person certificates, driver's licenses, etc

Digital wallets are widely used, and the Digital Development Department is discussing with various departments, prioritizing the inclusion of high-frequency digital documents, such as:

Ministry of the Interior: Credentials for natural persons

Ministry of Economic Affairs: Business Registration Certificate

Ministry of Labour: Vocational and technical license

Ministry of Transportation: Driver's License

Ministry of Health and Welfare: Health insurance card (integration is difficult, but efforts will be made to promote it)

Zhuang Yingzhi said frankly that the digital integration of health insurance cards is more challenging, but the government will continue to break through technical and regulatory barriers so that digital wallets can play a greater role.

Banks and insurance companies are actively responding, and convenience store certification functions are also being sought after.

The Department also invites private industry players to join us, making the application scenarios of digital wallets more diversified. Among them, the financial industry has responded the most, especially banks and insurers, because digital wallets can simplify the KYC (Know Your Customer) process.

Chuang Yingzhi pointed out that banks and insurers need to expend a lot of resources to verify customer identities, while the documents in digital wallets are issued by the government, which will significantly reduce the review costs for the operators and improve service efficiency.

In addition, the Ministry of Digital Development also hopes to apply digital wallets to identity verification for picking up goods at convenience stores. Currently, many consumers need to present identification when picking up goods at convenience stores. If they also want to accumulate membership points, they usually need to enter their phone number, which poses a risk of personal information leakage. In the future, if digital wallets can replace physical identification and manual data entry, it will improve convenience and reduce privacy risks.

Schedule: Sandbox testing starts in March, and the pilot version goes live in December

The Digital Wallet Development Department is expected to launch a sandbox test in mid to late March this year to test the actual operation of the digital wallet and optimize it based on feedback, with the ultimate goal of launching a trial version in December.

The project is part of the "Digital Innovation Key Infrastructure Design Plan" of the Ministry of Digital Development, and the core technology includes a distributed verification and authorization system, and the current construction of the main system is won by Chunghwa Telecom, and the plan is to promote the timeline from 2024 to 2027.

Budget challenges: Funding for digital public construction projects remains volatile

The early investment cost of the digital wallet project is relatively high. Zhuang Yingzhi stated that about NT$100 million has been invested in 2023, and it is expected to spend tens of millions in 2024. However, the recent turmoil of reducing the total budget by the Legislative Yuan has not yet subsided. If the digital infrastructure project lacks funds, it may affect the progress of promotion.

Chuang stressed that digital wallets are not unique to Taiwan, and that the United States, the European Union, Australia and other countries are currently promoting similar plans, and he hopes that Taiwan can be in line with international standards to ensure that digital development does not lag behind global trends.

The new era of digital identity, see the real chapter in December

The launch of the digital wallet marks an important step towards digital identity integration in Taiwan. If it can be successfully implemented, it will greatly improve the convenience and security of identity verification, allowing people to complete various digital identity verification with only their mobile phones when they go out. With the launch of sandbox testing in March and the launch of the pilot in December, the development of this program deserves continued attention.

This article Digital Wallet will compete in December! The Digital Development Department promotes digital identity integration and hopes that banks and convenience stores will join. First appeared on Chain News ABMedia.