CIO Straight Talk - Issue 11 - 35

Clearly, tamper-proof documentation would be
a good thing for poor women and marginalized
people in general. Many of the world's most
vulnerable lose all they have because they
lack the right papers or have had their papers
stolen from them. Farmers who lack proof they
own their land can have it taken away by a new
political regime. Refugees who have had to leave
everything behind, from academic degrees to
medical records to bank accounts, have nothing
to prove their identity nor what they did in their
home country.
The lack of legal identity prevents people from
being a part of society, from being served,
heard, understood or even considered. A formal
identity is the basis of fundamental rights and
without it, people are invisible.
Secure documents would make a big difference
in their lives. But how do you give someone an
indestructible identity that cannot be taken away
by somebody else, whether it's a criminal or a
family or a government?

everything, but I think it will be the foundation
of some major social changes.
It's important that we remember, however,
that technology is amoral. Though our biases
can seep into technologies such as artificial
intelligence, the baseline of technology is devoid
of moral judgement. Whether it is good or bad
largely depends on who is using it and for what
purpose. In the Dark Web, Bitcoin and other
crypto-currencies are being used for criminal
transactions, including human trafficking. Our
message to criminals in the Dark Web is: "OK, if
you're going to use this technology for bad, we'll
use this technology for good."

IF YOU DON'T HAVE AN IDENTITY,
NO ONE CAN PROTECT YOU.
ONCE WE KNOW YOU EXIST, WE
CAN COUNT YOU, WE CAN BEGIN
WORKING TOWARD TRYING TO
PROTECT YOU, MAKING SURE
YOUR HUMAN RIGHTS ARE
OBSERVED.

We think blockchain technology may be part of
the solution.

HOW BLOCKCHAIN
CAN HELP
The United Nations is working with the ID2020
Alliance, a global group that is working to give the
world's 1.1 billion undocumented people unique
digital identities. We're also working with UN
Women to look at how distributed ledger systems
can be used to address women's humanitarian
needs. And we have posed a challenge -
"Blockchain for Humanity" - that focuses on
combatting child trafficking. Currently, there
are nearly 20 million women who are victims of
trafficking, roughly half of them children. This
challenge has led to a successful pilot project by
the government of Moldova.

The first generation of the Internet was all
about moving information. This generation,
the blockchain era, is all about exchanging and
safeguarding value. With blockchain, we are
moving toward protecting assets, whether that's
safeguarding people's identity, educational
credentials, property, or money.

If you don't have an identity, no one can
protect you. Once we know you exist, we can
count you, we can begin working toward
trying to protect you. We can ensure that
your human rights are observed, and help you
achieve legal equality. Blockchain can't solve
35
CIO Straight Talk - Issue 11

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CIO Straight Talk - Issue 11
