Canada’s Federal Government Announces Public Consultation Regarding a New Framework for Digital Identity

Canada’s government announces public consultation for creating a federally regulated digital identity framework

To address the rise in identity fraud cases and to improve government services, many countries are now thinking about introducing national biometric identity systems. Canada is the most recent nation to join the US in implementing its own version of the Ghanacard. The US government is now considering a law for the adoption of the National biometric ID.

The federal government of Canada has revealed that it is getting ready to have a consultation with the public on a framework for digital identity. On August 5 of this year, the government unveiled its new Digital Ambition 2022, which outlined what it said was “a clear, long-term strategic vision for the Government of Canada to advance digital service delivery, cyber security, talent recruitment, and privacy.”

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) created the new strategy, which replaces the government’s Digital Operations Strategic Plan: 2021–2024, and “consolidates previous priorities” by taking into account input from its various predecessors. One of the actions outlined in the new strategy is stakeholder engagement. The Treasury Board notes that the page for the “Digital Operations Strategic Plan: 2021-2024” has been archived and won’t be updated.

The new strategy now focuses on the trusted digital identity and the ability of Canadians to prove ID claims more quickly as priority 2.2 identifies, it aims to “build and use secure common solutions for digital service delivery.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for government services to be accessible and flexible in the digital age,” the document reads

“The next step in making services more convenient to access s a federal Digital Identity Program, integrated with pre-existing provincial platforms.”

The letter restates a Treasury Board directive issued around the end of 2021 to work toward a standard digital identification platform for governmental services. The federal government is “launching public consultations on a federally regulated digital identification framework” and “creating a common and safe framework to digital identity” in order to achieve this.

To handle online interactions with the government, a federal digital identity programme will be formed.

At the recent IdentityNorth summit, Canadian authorities, including Treasury Board President Mona Fortier, made it clear that the nation must speed up the adoption of reliable digital IDs.

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