Bhutan's late blooming connectivity and now, self-sovereign digital ID ecosystem!

The internet was only introduced in The Kingdom of Bhutan in 1999. Despite this, the country’s digitalisation has snowballed to rival the global digital ecosystem.

The National Digital Identity Project of Bhutan asserted their rollout of self-sovereign decentralized digital ID in a speech given by Pallavi Sharma (NDI Bhutan) in October.

The rollout defies the landlocked, rugged terrains and social and digital development challenges including inclusion, future proof, KYC processes, partial digitalisation, trust and security, and the need for an integrated digital service. Individuals own their data and only share necessary data with service providers.

They are the example wallet for European prototypes across other national ID ecosystems, delivering a biometrically enabled edge mega wallet, secure signing, seamless currency, verifiable credential storage and the issuance of verifiable credentials.