Ethiopia gets $350M World Bank financing for its digital ID project (2024) | Hacker News Reader

Ethiopia gets $350M World Bank financing for its digital ID project (2024)

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53 pointstinfoilhatter51 comments

The comments here seem to have a negative sentiment towards this project, and I want to understand that better.

I would prefer not to carry ID at all times, but it seems to me that this is a fact of modern life -- in the US at least, ID is indeed required for banking, to get a drivers license, to board planes, etc. Our ID system is ridiculous. A weird combination of SSN's, Drivers license, and Passport are forced into this role, even though they weren't designed for that, and don't do a great job. If Ethiopia builds a _good_ system, I feel that is better than whatever _bad_ system would naturally arise without planning. Am I totally off base here? What am I missing?

Having a single digital ID that is used for everything makes sense from a technical perspective (less duplication, ambiguity, and need to maintain multiple IDs) but from a privacy perspective it is bad. Effectively everything you do online would be tied to a single comprehensive representation of your identity even if the task that uses the ID doesn't require more than knowing "this is a unique person using this service". If user data is leaked then it is easier to tie every digital service being used by a person together since there is a single ID number used everywhere.

IMO fewer things should require ID (e.g. domestic flights) because it opens up the risk of personal data being leaked or misused for often not much benefit.

But this particular ship has left the barn: everywhere where a real ID is needed, you have to dive your full legal name, and the document's dates and other details, which is easy to correlate with a low chance of error.

Yeah, I really do not think that governments are seriously stymied by the fact that the Amish don't have SSNs or that you only enter your name, DoB, phone, email, address, and state driver's license number to get a bank account instead of a federal ID number. If we really want privacy we need to firmly enshrine this stuff into law instead of slapping random data and hoping that makes privacy invasion too clumsy.

As someone with a bank account in the US, they absolutely do ask you for your SSN now-days.

Hell, even my Japan Post Bank account asked my for my SSN.

There are ways of implementing digital identity that do not require the user to divulge more information than is technically required to the party requesting authentication. This is one of the main benefits of a digital system. With physical IDs, you have to give the other party your entire driver's license/passport/whatever every time, even if they just need to know whether or not you're over 18.

> There are ways of implementing digital identity that do not require the user to divulge more information than is technically required

Yes, but the incentives for increased state power through surveillance are far greater than incentives to increase privacy.

Having a single (government ID) is bad, so instead we hand our personal details over to one of a dozen private companies, none of which has any contract with us, the user, and all of whom happily share it with the (20 or so, in Persona's case) other companies they use to farm out bits and pieces of the identity verification job. Sure this is better.

Meanwhile, I have never had any fraud, scam, identity theft or anything else as a result of, or with any connection to my country's national ID. But I can't avoid also having to hand over my details to private (and foreign to me) companies that only exist because Americans can't get act together.

Srsly.

about the american system- i’ll shoot. i’m a trans american, and i got my passport renewed during the 2nd trump administration. i got one with a name that is… not my legal name or what people call me in my daily life. i also live in a state in the northeast that respects my rights, so i have a drivers license that matches my legal name. this is not the case in all states [1]. a social security number, drivers license and passport all serve different functions (banking, driving, foreign travel), and centralizing all of them increases the blast radius of any abuses. if the second trump administration was in charge of a centralized digital id, they could much worse things to me.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/kansas-invalidates-...

It sounds great until all of an individual's activity online and offline starts being tracked through it, because transactions require a single digital ID (potentially even accessing the internet). And then, when the government decides it doesn't like what you're doing, it's amazingly easy for them to cut off your access to essential services like banking, transportation, etc...

They (any government agency) literally scan your physical ID whenever they need it. How is this materially different to a digital ID being accessed.

Because your physical ID isn't scanned every time you access your bank account, and your bank (hopefully) doesn't check with some central database the government controls before issuing you an account. With a digital ID controlled by your government, that is required for accessing your account on the other hand...

We're not talking about just governments, we're talking about the private sector having to verify a digital identity tied to your biometrics before allowing you to participate in commerce. This is a whole different ball game than having to present a physical ID before being granted access to government services.

The latter is quite normal and the former is extremely dystopian.

> your bank (hopefully) doesn't check with some central database the government controls before issuing you an account.

Hmm... the OFAC SDN and other sanctions lists? Politically exposed persons lists? These are very standard KYC/AML checks.

What about when obtaining a SIM card or internet access? What about when purchasing a bus or train or plane ticket? Do you think you should have to identify yourself with a digital ID to withdraw your own money from your own bank account? Your average citizen isn't on a sanction list or a politically exposed persons list. In a national digital ID system they will be on a list regardless of whether or not they've done anything wrong, and the government can easily block their access if they don't like what they've been doing. Governments should not have this kind of control over the lives of ordinary citizens.

Not to mention the fact that NGOs like the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation are funding this. It's proof that it's more than just nation states that want to implement these digital ID systems. Why should the world bank or Bill Gates have any influence on who can and cannot withdraw their own money?

If you view requiring id for daily tasks as a bad thing, then a more efficient and effective id system would be a bad thing for you.

Ya, I think this is the root of the disagreement. Thanks for putting it so succinctly.

I do not want a digital ID normalized. It’ll lead to a world where everywhere you go, you need to identify yourself. And those that don’t will be marginalized and locked out of everyday basic services. There is an entire industry pushing this, and I’ve been seeing a phrase “id/acc”. Like to accelerate identification. It’s the opposite of privacy and anonymization. It’s evil.

It's already normalized in much of the world and has been for decades since Malaysia began the MyKad program in 2001 [0].

For developing countries, digital and biometric IDs make it easier to disburse public services as well as gain a more realistic understanding of demographics.

Digital activism and (somewhat valid) paranoia around privacy is a luxury belief when vast swathes of the population in LDCs are unbanked and relegated to the informal economy.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_identity_card

They also make it easier for nation states to cut off access to public and private services when they don't like what a citizen is doing. It's wasn't normalized by choice - it was forced upon people. I'm sure NGOs and governments love it but that certainly doesn't mean that citizens do, which governments are supposed to serve. The paranoia is very valid. [1]

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vietnam-bank-account-purge-bo...

My in-laws in rural Gia Lai love having a biometric ID as does my extended family in rural Northwest India.

Before there was significant friction when setting up physical IDs and bank and government services simply couldn't scale down to the village level, which would make routine paperwork a multi-day affair.

Being able to do almost all government-related and banking paperwork over the Internet has legimately made it easier for my extended family in both VN and India to become banked, access public welfare without dealing with corrupt local apparatchiks, and accessing capital to think about making MSMEs.

As I mentioned above, this kind of performative activism is a luxury belief.

It's already possible to do government-related and banking paperwork over the Internet without digital identities linked to your biometrics. We do it every day in the United States.

You're also conveniently ignoring the fact that the system in Ethiopia is being used for far more than banking or government services - their website lists obtaining internet access, sim cards, transportation etc... These digital identities are being used to surveil the activity of citizens and lock anyone the government doesn't like out of commerce.

In the US most households have already had records and identities associated with themselves for decades. In most of the developing world, most people didn't even have a drivers license 20 years ago.

> their website lists obtaining internet access, sim cards, transportation etc... These digital identities are being used to surveil the activity of citizens and lock anyone the government doesn't like out of commerce.

So what?

Ethiopia is also a country with active insurgencies and security risks. The benefits of security and stability outweigh the alternative.

Look at China - it's progress in building digital public infrastructure is what helped it expand dramatically in the 2010s [0].

This is the same thing India is doing [1] (who implemented this project in Ethiopia btw), as is Brazil [2], and other Global South members. Even the EU is looking at adopting similar tenets as well [3].

[0] - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-04614-4

[1] - https://ris.org.in/sites/default/files/Publication/DPI_Handb...

[2] - https://cop30.br/en/news-about-cop30/brazil-calls-for-global...

[3] - https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/indias-digi...

Is expansion all that matters to you? What about human rights and personal sovereignty? Do you think China is a bastion of democracy and freedom? The benefits of security and stability do not outweigh the alternative when authoritarian governments decide to curb stomp the natural rights of people that don't want to comply with their agendas. You sound like an individual who would gladly take the mark of the beast if it was offered to you. Count me out (of this back and forth as well).

> Is expansion all that matters to you

I care about expanding public service delivery capacity. In developing countries, the only cheap and efficient manner to do so is via DPI.

The only countries that escaped the middle income trap have either been subsidized by EU development grants, oil exports, or US largess.

For countries where none of those are the option, you need to make do with what you have.

> The benefits of security and stability do not outweigh the alternative when authoritarian governments decide to curb stomp the natural rights of people that don't want to comply with their agendas

When the decision is between luxury beliefs or survival, and in a country like Ethiopia whose developmental indicators are comparable to Afghanistan, the latter will always win.

I wonder why their developmental indicators are so poor? Perhaps it's because of NGOs like the IMF and World Bank and the loans they issue to these nations and the structural adjustments that keep these nations in cycles of poverty. Amazingly it's the same NGOs that are handing out money to implement digital identities. I'm noticing a pattern here...

> IMF and World Bank and the loans they issue to these nations and the structural adjustments that keep these nations in cycles of poverty

IMF led reforms in the 1990s are what allowed PRC, Vietnam, India, and Bangladesh to start breaking out of the cycle of poverty that trapped their then developmental peers like Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Pakistan.

Also, the IMF and WB are not NGOs. Heck, countries like China and India are some of the largest shareholders in both.

> I wonder why their developmental indicators are so poor

Limited institutional capacity because most countries in the world were either in the midst of or recently ended major civil wars or conventional wars in the 1980s-90s.

Or it could be because of... https://www.jstor.org/stable/26363914

Which is the situation that led to the conflict in Ukraine in 2013/14 - an IMF loan that was up for renewal with harsh structural adjustments.

The IMF / WB consistently consult with NGOs and allow them to heavily influence their policies. You can point to four success stories of countries accepting IMF loans and recovering. There are 86 to 91 developing countries as of late 2025 that are still indebted to the IMF, especially in Africa.

It's a monetary tool for Western hegemony. Pretending it's anything else is disingenuous.

> I’ve been seeing a phrase “id/acc”.

I'm curious where, because the top google hits for this are a one-like twitter post, and your comment.

DigID in the Netherlands is amazing— it works super well and is central to many services. Then it was bought by an American company—oops.

Why is having a digital ID that captures your biometric information, that is central to accessing many services so amazing? Please elaborate. I guess if it was allowed to be purchased by a foreign actor, it's not so amazing after all...

I agree, it should not be purchaseable.

But, it beats going to physical places to show physical ids for the same service.

I understand the convenience factor, but the privacy / potential ethical concerns with digital IDs connected to private sector services like banking transactions, internet access, sim card availability, etc... outweigh the convenience factor in my mind. Too easy for governments to do bad things.

I remember many years ago (maybe around 2014?) reading about a smallish European country that implemented this sort of thing really well. There was nothing but glowing praise for it at the time. I want to say maybe it was Latvia?

Does anyone remember what I'm talking about? I'm wondering if there been any long-term takeaways for how well it ended up working.

Maybe Estonia? I was an e-resident and was really impressed by the digitization of the government systems (and non-government ones too! They inter-op) in Estonia.

its not only good https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/estonia-sues-gema...

If you mean Estonia. They had their 10 year anniversary of the e-Residency program in 2024 https://xcancel.com/e_Residents/status/1863538927098908813 around 33000 registered companies but no open financial numbers.

My business is incorporated in Estonia. Though I'm on the lookout at how "EU incorporated" will be, if that becomes a thing.

"estonian e- residents generated a record €125 million of state revenue in 2025" https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/blog/posts/e-residents-generat...

Speaking for Lithuania - we have something like 6 or 7 digital ID forms and until like last year or so - they all sucked, i.e.:

* Using your bank to login - well if you left country you generally close your bank.

* SIM card auth (similar to SMS, you get a code on your phone) - most popular, except same as above + doesn't work with eSIM.

* Chip card - requires reader, unclear software and certificates on card expire after 2 years which makes it useless if you moved abroad.

* Smart Id - scans your passport, does face scan and stays on your phone - pretty convenient, but turns out there are multiple levels of auth and this particular one isn't that useful...

* Contactless - the holy grail that's only been implemented recently - scan your id card/ passport using phone. I've only used it once, did require some esoteric software, but seems like a step in the right direction.

Bonus: e-gov forms actually predate mobile era. They have been built so long that you can forget trying to fill them on your phone. And if you do get to fill them, you'll most likely receive email that you need to come into the office for 'verification' which pretty much defeats entire system.

It's a loan from the developed world to an African country for an IT project. Are we sure no corruption will happen? Because such happens all the time even in developed countries.

The loan is the corruption.

$2.54 per person. They earn something like $300 per month.

(2024)

What problem is it aiming to solve and how will they measure success...?

Ethiopia is in the process of implementing a nationwide digital ID program called Fayda ID. Fayda ID is an implementation of the open source platform MOSIP [1].

The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation is a strategic partner and funder of the MOSIP technology platform. [2]

The digital ID is required by citizens for access to banking, obtaining a drivers license, obtaining SIM cards, and other essential services citizens rely on. [3]

The government of Ethiopia is now receiving funding from NGOs such as the World Bank to implement their national digital ID program. [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayda_ID

[2] https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/articles/mosip-digital...

[3] https://id.et/benefits

[4] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2023/12/13/w...

> The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation is a strategic partner and funder of the MOSIP technology platform.

Because of course it is.

MOSIP is Indian [0][1][2]. India is exporting multiple different stacks for Digital Public Infrastructure.

This project in Ethiopia is itself being pushed by the Indian government [3][4] and is part of India's larger "Global South" strategy [5].

I guess the question you should be asking is why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has becoming intertwined with Indian geopolitical power projection.

[0] - https://www.mosip.io/mosip_project

[1] - https://www.mosip.io/governance

[2] - https://www.iiitb.ac.in/projects/mosip-2

[3] - https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/india/india-elevates-ties-...

[4] - https://pulseofafrica.info/innovation/119

[5] - https://ris.org.in/sites/default/files/Publication/DPI_Handb...

Is it impossible for white billionaires to stop using Africa as a playground for their sick and depraved experiments?

It's an Indian government project though - the entire MOSIP project was developed in an Indian public university [0] and is directly tied with India's "global south" strategy [1]. Plus the majority of it's governance board is associated with the Indian government or Tata Group.

Digital Public Infrastructure in the "Global South" is India's attempt at building a digital version of OBOR [2].

[0] - https://www.iiitb.ac.in/projects/mosip-2

[1] - https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/india/india-elevates-ties-...

[2] - https://ris.org.in/sites/default/files/Publication/DPI_Handb...

Since I had to look it up, OBOR = One Belt One Road = Belt and Road Initiative, which is China's project for building infrastructure in developing countries to promote tighter economic integration with China.

It's a more literal translation of the Chinese name "一带一路".

Indian Govt. has been hijacked by the Anglo-American elites though by bribing all politicians/bureaucrats/capitalists.

This is just a wolf in a sheep's clothing.

Digital IDs are sick and depraved?

The downvotes for simply mentioning the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation are quite amazing.

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