Local Government Attestation System (LGAS)

Digitized community leader attestations that satisfy KYC rules.

Many governments have official IDs and many have problems of poor distribution, these are imperfect systems and oftentimes millions of citizens will not have an ID.  The new wave of digital identity solutions hold promise but these digital IDs now being developed still route “ID-excluded” individuals to the registration authorities before they can participate but these authorities are limited to urban centers with inefficiencies.  Our idea is a different approach, a local and universal approach to identity proofing that produces a new official local government digital record based on ‘official attestations’. 

”KYC requirements can be satisfied by a letter from a local government authority, village elder or leader” is a phrase common to many countries’ financial services and telecommunications regulatory frameworks.  It describes a solution in which a community member with no form of ID could request a letter from a close-by government representative, attesting to their identity as a crude KYC check.  Such letters would satisfy KYC requirements and allow the bearers to conduct their business.

In reality these letters have never worked.  No country has ever set up a proper system to produce these letters, any efforts were time-consuming one-off’s and they create data management headaches.  These letters have never worked for reasons our idea solves. 

Our main idea is to make the attestation contained in this letter both digital and universal with a Local Government Attestation System (LGAS) that binds an individual’s biometrics with an official statement as to their identity AND that integrates with national registration schemes in a way non-blocking to accessing financial services.

The idea would be to blanket geographic areas and for all residents to have these universally-available attestations, recognized by the broader financial services ecosystem and accessed via API.

Three key hurdles are approval, usability and incentive. 

APPROVAL:  Many central banks now recognize the letter form of attestation, digitizing is a straightforward modernization of an accepted practice. 

USABILITY:  The end-users are the community leaders who are the authorized attestors, who will be primarily engaged in enrollment.  They need tools to provide the attestations and since this is only in the ‘idea’ stage I don’t have a specific solution but will mention mobile phones and mesh networks.  Space is limited here.

INCENTIVE: There must be benefit for all parties, all stakeholders.   The two most common approaches to motivate public participation in this scenario are lotteries and funeral insurance.  The economics of lotteries and funeral insurance are both attractive and universal – everyone potentially benefits.   So everyone gets a chance in the daily lottery and everyone is covered with a death benefit. 

Other potential use cases include products and services from partner telecom, bank, agro-dealers and FMCB distributors.

We can also imagine these digital government attestations being part of an agglomeration of identity data and that these simple attestations can form the foundation for more robust ID Proofing.

My hope is that by participating in the Mission Billion Challenge this will move from Idea to Prototype. 

Thanks.

Universal local government attestations tied to biometrics and available via API could be a new tool to ensure against ID-Exclusion.

It follows existing thinking laid out in the regulatory frameworks for financial services in many countries.  It also follows the spirit of KYC requirements, that a person be known, while being completely inclusive, since this is a localized exercise and all people are known by their community members regardless of whether they have traditional ID documents.

This idea relates to privacy through inclusion.  A person who is ID-Excluded from participating in certain aspects of society, and enjoying the related benefits, lacks control, including the control to remain private.

This idea relates to ID-Proofing, the very first stage of identification and rather than subject individuals to the scrutiny of whatever documents they might normally be required to submit in traditional processes, this idea is one of universal recognition, person-to-person.  The applicant reveals nothing, and (in the context of being a community member) should not face the possibility of being rejected. 

This idea would create a new government record, an attestation by a local government representative of the identities of those who are known to them.  It is a modernization of a letter as crude KYC that is already embedded in the regulatory frameworks in many countries.  And by leveraging the advantages of digitization the KYC is not nearly as crude, it contains a lot of information.  

The intention is that this new digital record have attributes that could be integrated with existing national registration processes, such as national IDs.  

This idea is simple.  A government representative states that they know a person, they identify this person by a name and perhaps by other pertinent biographical data.

There are two 'users': 

(1) the authorized parties (local government representatives) who would enroll individuals.  For them the process is simple but must be intermediated with some still-to-be-identified technology.  

(2) the individuals themselves participate in a very simple process that requires nothing but their presence.  

The broadest version of this idea is simply binding biometrics with official attestations and the specific instance in this case is that the attestations relate to a person's identity.  

The intention is to make the resulting digital files persistently accessible to all ecosystem stakeholders via API.

Again as this is still only an idea many details are TBD but I will say that literacy and numeracy are unrelated to an individual's enrollment.  The only limiting factor might be the effectiveness of the chosen biometric(s).  For example many people who work for years with their hands wear down their fingerprints, rendering them useless as a biometric marker. 

As the idea moves to prototype and beyond, the hoped-for effect will be to greatly lessen ID-Exclusion.  This will have its greatest effect in those geographies where ID-Exclusion is most prevalent.

I ran this idea past people now designing and delivering new digital identity systems and past others who regularly deal with KYC issues.  The idea came to me since I have reviewed many regulatory frameworks and found frequent refererence to this physical letter as a kind of KYC-of-last-resort.  

High potential partners include existing clients, fintechs and regulated financial services firms in Guinea, Nigeria and the south Pacific.  I selected Guinea as the 'project location' because it is largely ignored by the FI community.

This is an industry in which one must learn constantly to keep up with the latest tech developments, while building on experiences with regulators and, more generally, building businesses.

TBD -- API calls could come with a small fee.  Alternatively success based commissions, earned as the result of a product or service sold as a direct result, could further supplement.  Much study is needed during prototyping.

We are often pushing regulators who are conservative and resistant to change and want to offer them the exposure to be seen as forward-thinking.  By bringing this project it strengthens our relationships. 

Adoption, usability and incentive -- all touched upon in our Opening Pitch.

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PLEASE NOTE: In order for this form to be "complete" there were four instances in the Basic Information section which asked for video uploads (if they exist).  In this case there are no such existing videos so I put in placemaker links -- 3 link to my Pitch video and one links to the classic 1968 movie Mandabi, in which the main character struggles with KYC issues.