Papua New Guinea advances digital ID, wallet and govt platform to pilot

Papua New Guinea has stood up a new digital ID, wallet and online government platform, and plans to pilot them with 10,000 users, starting in the next few weeks, according to an announcement on LinkedIn.

Pilots of the SevisPass digital ID, the SevisPortal and SevisWallet all launched this week, on a limited basis. The SevisPass is derived from the national ID program and existing physical IDs, and PNG residents can use it to access government services through the SevisPortal. The SevisWallet app stores the SevisPass.

Seven government services are already available through the SevisPortal, and over the next 12 to 18 months, a “digital ecosystem of public and private services” will be constructed to help boost the national economy, says Steven Matainaho, chairman of the Public Service ICT Steering Committee at the country’s Department of Information & Communications Technology (DICT).

The pilots are supported by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Australian High Commission for New Guinea, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and GovStack. ID30 assisted DICT in developing the design and roadmap of the digital public infrastructure, according to a LinkedIn post from the consultancy’s CEO Jaume Dubois.

Corporate implementation partners on the project include PNG Dataco and Whiteways Systems. Kumul Technology Development Corporation, a commercial arm of state entity Kumul Consolidated Holdings, was also established to assist in the development and commercialization of the digital ID and service portal.

PNG collaborated with DHI Bhutan on both the digital ID and wallet, and utilized open-source no-code application platform Joget for the SevisPortal.

More than 3 million people out of PNG’s population of 10 million have a national ID card. For the rest, Dubois writes, drivers’ licenses, superannuation cards and passports are still used by service providers to trust the identity of the person engaging with them.

“The launch has been an absolute success,” Dubois told Biometric Update over LinkedIn. “This gives a lot of credibility to everyone involved and hope for other countries pursuing the same modernization goals as PNG.”

The speed with which the country has reached the pilot stage is certainly notable, having issued an RFI in late-2023. The country also adopted a national policy for data protection and governance in May.

The pilots were announced during the PNG Digital Transformation Summit 2024, along with DICT’s Corporate Plan 2024-2027.

Article Topics

digital government  |  digital ID  |  digital public infrastructure  |  Druk Holding  |  government services  |  ID30  |  Papua New Guinea  |  SevisPass  |  SevisPortal  |  SevisWallet