In Ukraine, an air of social credit with the Diia application

If the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has put these two countries at the forefront of the international scene, we have learned that the second city is a digital champion. In a logic of digitizing and centralizing everything, the government launched in 2020 an application called Diia which brings together identity card, passport, license, vaccination record, registrations, insurance, health reimbursements, social benefits, and more. . A model that we only knew so far in China with the famous social credit.

Ukraine is the champion of digital identity with the Diia app

This had been mentioned for a long time, then precipitated by the COVID crisis, governments want to move towards the digitization of everyday life by bringing together almost all services on the telephone. While the European Union had announced a test to digitize the vaccination record (see official PDF), wallet and identities in 2018, Ukraine was very quick to react with a Diia application deployed by the government there almost two years ago. Since then, the platform has continued to evolve.

Ukrainians can download Diia and store a whole lot of official information there as mentioned above, with the aim of being able to easily carry out most of the administrative procedures, which range from paying their taxes to renewing their identity papers, including the payment of his fines or the recovery of his social benefits. In all, nearly 50 services can be reached from the application and 9 official documents which have the same value as their paper counterparts. Eventually, it will soon be impossible to make an official request. Moreover, with COVID-19, the government has even announced that the payment of benefits will be conditional on the presence of a vaccination certificate. In addition, a program soberly named 'cash for vaccines' and launched by Volodimir Zelensky last year, intended 'to encourage people to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and to support the sectors of the economy which have suffered the most. quarantine restrictions. From the age of 14, each person with a full vaccination schedule in the application received 1000 hryvnia (about 30 euros). When reality catches up with Orwell..

Ukraine therefore posed as the champion of digitalization before the war broke out at the end of February. At the start of 2021, it already claimed more than 4.5 million active users. But taking a closer look at what is currently being done, it turns out that Poland has a mobile application similar to that of Ukraine, which was launched at the end of 2019. This Polish app displays seven digital documents and allows users to identify themselves with a digital ID card in places where a paper passport is not legally required.

In the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, citizens can use electronic passports at airports for check-in and security screening. It's coming soon to the US thanks to Apple Wallet. In China, citizens have access to virtual identity cards integrated into a mobile application. Users can use it to identify themselves when they register in a hotel or to benefit from certain government services, with a points system that allows them to have additional rights in the event of “good behavior”. In Estonia, 70% of the population uses digital ID cards, while 99% of public services are available online.

What do you think of this transition to all-digital? Practical or worrying?

https://iphonesoft.fr/2022/03/16/ukraine-air-credit-social-application-diia