The potential of blockchain technology is being reckoned across industries – from finance to real estate, to logistics, to media, and beyond. The technology also shows a huge promise to help humanitarian efforts, such as the identity management for refugees.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released its annual Global Trends study just ahead of the World Refugee Day observed June 20. According to the report, 68.5 million people had been driven from their homes across the world at the end of 2017.

A number of blockchain-based efforts to provide digital identities to refugees have been initiated in the past couple of months. Procivis, a Switzerland-based digital identity platform, is collaborating with the Rohingya Project NGO in order to provide digital IDs to Rohingya people, the world’s biggest stateless minority.

The World Food Programme, a United Nations agency, is reportedly using a variant of the Ethereum Blockchain to address the identity crisis of Syrian refugees.

AID:Tech, an Irish startup, focuses on the delivery of digital entitlements, including welfare, aid, remittance and donations using blockchain and digital identity. Co-founder and CEO Joseph Thompson believes that refugees not only need to reformulate their personal identity to secure a sense of belonging, but also it’s imperative from a legal, social, and political perspective.

“The UN has highlighted identity within the Sustainable Development Goals with the World Bank introducing guiding principles on how identification systems should be designed - encouraging signs. However, there is still significant progress to be made to address issues surrounding identity for the vulnerable,” Thompson said.

“Identity systems are increasingly prolific but they are not necessarily addressing the fundamental needs of refugees eg. identity systems that are put in place for quota purposes but do not address the wider implications of being unidentifiable. An effective identity solution needs to be flexible, reliable and sustainable while also accommodating the transitional circumstances often faced by refugees. This is particularly crucial and alarming when we consider that refugee children are being born with the risk of missing out on legal identity; the foundation for access to formal services, including healthcare and education.”

Nydia Zhang, Co-founder and Chairwoman of Social Alpha Foundation, a not-for-profit grant making platform supporting blockchain technology for social good, said that self Sovereign Identity, a key-based, on-chain decentralized digital identity could help iron out the shortcomings of government paper-based IDs. Underscoring the potential of blockchain technology, Zhang said:

“It’s important to acknowledge that our identities need to be protected, and blockchain can help alleviate the problem of identity theft and the violation of data privacy.”

Shyft Network, a blockchain-based digital identity solution that enables KYC/AML attested data transfers, is building a blockchain network that can help refugees gain access to the global economy by giving them a way to build “creditability,” a contextual identity based on reputation and credibility.

“We are breaking down walls and silos to build bridges that transcend borders, and working with established and up-and-coming organizations to disrupt the way identity is assessed and managed. Given the extent of the global identity crisis, it has never been more important to work on solutions that will help build a more fair and inclusive future for everyone,” Bruce Silcoff, CEO of the Shyft Network, said.

[Correction: The article has been edited to mention that AID:Tech is an Irish startup (not based out of Dubai as mentioned previously)]