Fiji has established a 3-year timeline for the completion of its National Digital ID project, following an inception workshop attended by government ministries, the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF), the Asian Development Bank, commercial banks and the private sector.

There is a good reason why banks are involved in the project. Central bank digital currencies will be digital ID-based. And it is the banking system that is expected to manage the related identity systems.

Fiji’s National Digital ID project aims to create a secure and scalable national database that supports accurate and inclusive identification processes, with the goal of increasing access to services and economic opportunities, particularly for citizens in rural and maritime areas, as well as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and cooperatives.

According to Shaheen Ali, Permanent Secretary for Trade, Co-operatives, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Communications, the National Digital ID will also help improve resilience to natural disasters and support sustainable development goals through more efficient policies and better access to data.

The project is expected to take at least 36 months to complete, during which stakeholders will work closely to establish a project team, governance structures and a communication plan, followed by the drafting of enabling legislation.

Fiji is receiving assistance from the Asian Development Bank, which has experience with implementing national digital ID systems and has shared best practices from successful programmes worldwide.

The project has also received support from the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise, which conducted a feasibility study for the digital ID project, and the United Nations Development Program (“UNDP”), which is supporting the project under the umbrella of Fiji’s National Border Security Upgrade Priorities for 2023 to 2028.

Additionally, Fiji has partnered with Japan’s Digital Government Agency for its digital transformation programme, which includes the implementation of a border programme for Fiji, Palau and Vanuatu to facilitate travel and transactions among the countries through data interoperability and inter-agency cooperation.

The project is part of Fiji’s efforts to create a more inclusive society and improve access to government services, with some mobile applications such as “Government Directory” and “myFeedback” already developed to ease access to government services.

The above is a précis of the article ‘Fiji sets 3-year timeline for National Digital ID project’ published by Biometric Update.  We have used the Globalists’ language as it was reported to demonstrate it is the same global agenda we are seeing rolling out across the world using the same buzzwords: “inclusive,” “resilience,” “stakeholders” and “sustainable development.”  All these meaningless words are thrown in as an attempt to convince the public that this is for our benefit, or rather for the “greater good” or “common good.” 

Don’t be fooled because it is not for our benefit, it is about control, total control. Not only control over people’s movements or access to government services but also control over what can be purchased using our bank accounts. Because digital IDs will be integrated with central bank digital currencies (“CBDCs”).

As the Financial Times reported in May 2021, a Goldman Sachs report “inadvertently homes in on two factors that are increasingly becoming understood as essential in CBDC structures worldwide.” The first pertains to anonymity.

What CBDC research and experimentation appears to be showing is that it will be nigh on impossible to issue such currencies outside of a comprehensive national digital ID management system. Meaning: CBDCs will likely be tied to personal accounts that include personal data, credit history and other forms of relevant information.

… CBDCs would have to be structurally designed to be universal and accessible to everyone, regardless of their credit history or record … If the system is universal and cannot discriminate, it cannot also prevent the facilitation of illicit activity … This is why most central banks are designing their CBDCs to be account-based or ID-verified.

But if money is to be identity-based rather than token-based and fungible, this introduces a whole new set of ethical dilemmas and social questions, which aren’t really being asked at the moment on a wide enough social level.

When money goes ID-based, one also has to consider the broader parameters of the potential data creep. Just how far should that personal file reach? What sort of non-monetary information should or shouldn’t be contained within it? To what degree should account-holders be able to refuse access to their data to third parties? Who might the government entrust to manage and operate these schemes, and how can we hold them to account?

In many CBDC iterations, as Goldman Sachs notes, it’s the broader banking system that is expected to manage the related identity systems and customer-facing relations.

However CBDCs evolve over the long run, what this tells us is that it is of paramount importance that politicians and central bankers engage the public in the development of ID-based money systems more broadly. As it stands, the state of the discussion is so specialised and technical, new monetary systems risk being swept in without any democratic oversight at all.

Why CBDCs will likely be ID-based, Financial Times, 5 May 2021