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Digital ID

World Bank president advocates global digital ID scheme at tech summit

Published

1 year ago

6 minute read

World Bank President Anjay Banga

From LifeSiteNews

By Tim Hinchliffe

Once digital identity is established and connected with public-private infrastructure, then everything else can be built on top of it, including access to financial services, insurance, healthcare, education, and the process of starting a new business – digital ID would be required for everything.

The president of the World Bank calls on governments to launch digital identity schemes, so that they can be linked with the private sector and existing infrastructures.

Speaking at the World Bank Group’s inaugural Global Digital Summit last week, World Bank president Ajay Banga said that digital identity should be embraced worldwide, and that governments should be the owners, so they can guarantee privacy and security for their citizens.

According to Banga, once everyone is hooked-up to a digital ID, then it can be linked to existing infrastructure run by private companies.

“Creating a digital identity platform for citizenry is kind of foundational, and I believe your government should be the owner of your digital ID; private companies should not own that,” said the World Bank president, adding, “it is the social contract of the citizens of their countries to have an identity, a currency, and safety. We should not take that away from them.”

They should have the digital identity; that digital identity should guarantee the privacy of that citizen; it should help them with their security, but the government should give the identity.

Once you do that, then connecting them to the infrastructure that a private company, either Ericsson or Verizon, or combinations of them – in fact mostly it’s a combination – then the question is, ‘What do you do with it that requires a digital ID?’ so you can start connecting with that citizen.

For Banga and other unelected globalists, digital identity is the key to unlocking access to goods and services through public-private partnerships – the fusion of corporation and state.

Once governments launch their digital identity schemes, the World Bank president says they should be connected to private companies and existing infrastructures.

“Now the question is that you connect with that citizen, you must ensure that governments guarantee the privacy of that citizen,” said Banga.

“Because if you don’t do that, you will run into trouble with the acceptance of the idea.

“So, if you want this to be embraced around the world, yes, get the infrastructure, get a digital ID […] get that going and then move from there,” he added.

[Source: World Economic Forum]

Once digital identity is established and connected with public-private infrastructure, then everything else can be built on top of it, including access to financial services, insurance, healthcare, education, and the process of starting a new business – digital ID would be required for everything.

The World Bank president’s words echo those of India’s digital ID architect Nandan Nilekani, who said at last year’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings, “If you think, ‘what are the tools of the New World?’ – Everybody should have a digital ID; everybody should have a bank account; everybody should have a smartphone.”

“Then, anything can be done. Everything else is built on that.”

Nilekani is a staunch advocate of digital public infrastructure (DPI), which consists of three components: digital identity, digital payments systems, and mass data sharing.

Last year, the G20 India Leaders’ Declaration stated:

We endorse the voluntary and nonbinding G20 Policy Recommendations for Advancing Financial Inclusion and Productivity Gains through Digital Public Infrastructure. We take note of the significant role of digital public infrastructure in helping to advance financial inclusion in support of inclusive growth and sustainable development.

Prior to the G20 Summit, the B20 India Communique recommended that members, “Roll out digital public infrastructure to boost financial inclusion and healthcare access.”

Then in November 2023, the United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and their partners launched the 50-in-5 campaign to help “50 countries design, launch, and scale components of their digital public infrastructure” within the next five years.

Ahead of last month’s vote on an update to the European digital identity framework, a small number of MEPs spoke out against the adoption of an EU-wide digital identity wallet, calling it an insult to democracy that was creating a QR code society and leading to a Chinese-style system of social credit.

Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.

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Digital ID

Wales Becomes First UK Testbed for Citywide AI-Powered Facial Recognition Surveillance

Published on February 23, 2025

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Wales is that part of the UK the authorities have picked as the testbed for the first citywide deployment of what some consider to currently be the most radical form of mass biometric surveillance in public places – “AI”-powered live facial recognition.
What is likely to be the reason behind the “trial,” privacy campaigners are warning, is the eventual permanent deployment of this type of biometric surveillance throughout the country.
South Wales Police said that Cardiff will be covered by a network of CCTV cameras with facial recognition tech embedded in them, while the excuse is providing security during the international Six Nations rugby event. But the police also characterized the move as “semi-permanent.”
This appears to be a distinction between what the police in the UK have used thus far to carry out surveillance based on live facial recognition: vans with one camera.
The decision to move to position a host of cameras in the central zone of Cardiff makes this a significant expansion of the technique.
And while the police are reassuring citizens that expanding live facial recognition “really enhances” law enforcement’s ability to do their job –  the Big Brother Watch privacy group slammed the move as a “shocking” development and the creation of an “Orwellian biometric surveillance zone.”
And while capturing everyone’s biometric data, and in that way, according to Big Brother Watch’s Senior Advocacy Officer Madeleine Stone, turning Brits into “walking barcodes” and “a nation of suspects” – in terms of solving crime, this is proving to be a waste of public money.
“This network of facial recognition cameras will make it impossible for Cardiff residents and visitors to opt out of a biometric police identity check,” Stone underlined.
And yet, over the three years that live facial recognition has been in use at sporting venues (only) – the use of the technology has not led to any arrests.
“No other democracy in the world spies on its population with live facial recognition in this cavalier and chilling way,” Stone warned, adding, “South Wales Police must immediately stop this dystopian trial.”
The technology works by capturing the faces of every person passing through an area covered, in real time, to then compare them to a database of those described in reports as “wanted criminals.”
However, when South Wales Police spoke about who is on their “watchlist,” it also included people “banned from the area” and those “who pose a risk to the public.”
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Carbon Tax

Mark Carney has history of supporting CBDCs, endorsed Freedom Convoy crackdown

Published on February 20, 2025

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Carney also said last week that he is willing to use all government powers, including “emergency powers,” to enforce his energy plan if elected prime minister.   

World Economic Forum-linked Liberal Party leadership frontrunner Mark Carney has a history of supporting central bank digital currencies, and in 2022 supported “choking off the money” donated to the Freedom Convoy.

In his 2021 book Value(s), Carney said that the “future of money” is a “central bank stablecoin, known as a central bank digital currency or CBDC.” 

He noted in his book that such a currency would be similar to current cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but without the private nature afforded to it by its decentralization.   

“It is simply untenable in democracies that the core of the monetary system could be based on forms of electronic private money whose creators control large blocks of the currency, like Bitcoin,” he wrote. “Cryptocurrencies are not the future of money.”

Carney noted that a CBDC, if “properly designed,” could serve “all the functions to which private cryptocurrencies and stablecoins aspire while addressing the fundamental legal and governance issues that will, in time, undermine those alternatives.” 

Expanding on his worldview in relation to CBDCs, Carney suggested that “fear” can be taken advantage of to shape the future of money.

“With fear on the march, people were willing to surrender to Hobbes’ ‘Leviathan’ such basic rights as the freedom to leave their homes,” he wrote. “And so it is with money. People will support the delegation to independent central banks of the tough decisions that are necessary to maintain the value of money provided the authorities deliver monetary and financial stability.” 

Some Canadians are alarmed by the prospect of CBDCs, a fear that only worsened after the Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau froze hundreds of bank accounts it deemed were importantly linked to the 2022 Freedom Convoy. 

During the Freedom Convoy, Carney wrote in an op-ed for the Globe and Mail, “Those who are still helping to extend this occupation must be identified and punished to the full force of the law,” adding that “Drawing the line means choking off the money that financed this occupation.” 

In addition to his comments on CBDCs, Carney has a history of promoting anti-life and anti-family agendas, including abortion and LGBT-related  efforts. He has also previously endorsed the carbon tax and even criticized Trudeau when the tax was exempted from home heating oil to reduce costs for some Canadians.  

Carney also said last week that he is willing to use all government powers, including “emergency powers,” to enforce his energy plan if elected prime minister.   

The Liberal Party of Canada will choose its next leader, who will automatically become prime minister, on March 9, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that he plans to step down as Liberal Party leader once a new leader has been chosen.     

In contrast to Carney, Poilievre has promised that if he is elected prime minister, he would stop any implementation of a “digital currency” or a compulsory “digital ID” system.   

When it comes to a digital Canadian dollar, the Bank of Canada found that Canadians are very wary of a government-backed digital currency, concluding that a “significant number” of citizens would resist the implementation of such a system.  

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