Far too many children still don't have birth certificates
Berlin, 20 december 2023 - Around one billion people worldwide do not have a legal identity. This is often due to the fact that their birth is not registered at all. Veridos, the world's leading provider of integrated identity solutions, is calling on all stakeholders to continue their commitment to universal birth registration.
A legal identity is a prerequisite for modern life in an interconnected world. It is the only way people can protect their fundamental rights and participate in social, political and economic life. However, around one billion people worldwide are excluded from this - because they do not have a legal identity. In its Sustainable Development Goal 16.9, the United Nations calls on all countries to provide all citizens with an identity by 2030.
Birth registration plays a crucial role in this, as it is the basic prerequisite for obtaining a legal identity. Governments around the world have already made great efforts to enable their citizens to register their births. According to UNICEF, while only 60% of children under the age of five were registered in their countries in 2000, this figure had risen to 75% by 2019. However, UNICEF estimates that around 237 million children under the age of five still do not have a birth certificate.
Veridos supports the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 and is committed to achieving this goal by developing new ID technologies and supporting an ongoing global exchange of knowledge. "The global trend in birth registration is cause for cautious optimism," says Marc-Julian Siewert, CEO of Veridos. "However, all stakeholders must continue to advocate for universal birth registration to ensure that the UN's sustainability goal becomes a reality by 2030."
As part of its global engagement, Veridos recently supported the Policy Hackathon “Hack-GPT” (Generating the Policy of Tomorrow) at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as challenge sponsor. Three of its experts briefed around 50 participants on the challenges of the birth registration. The participants formed eleven teams to analyze new approaches to birth registration taking into account new policies, local circumstances and innovative technologies. The Veridos experts selected the most promising approaches from the team presentations for the final awards ceremony.
"The MIT Policy Hackathon was a great experience for everyone involved," said Frank Schmalz, Head of Product Management Identity Management Systems at Veridos: "The students came up with many interesting ideas and provided valuable inspiration for our own work and our mission to help states guarantee their citizens the human right to a legal identity." We are glad that we got the opportunity to inspire young people to find solutions to some of the challenging problems that face our societies.
Veridos GmbH
Veridos is a world-leading provider of integrated identity solutions. Governments and public authorities in more than 100 countries trust the company’s uniquely comprehensive product portfolio. The company creates end-to-end solutions and services perfectly tailored to meet every government identity need. These range from paper to security printing, electrical chip components, enrollment, identity management systems, personalization and issuance, mobile ID solutions, and border control solutions including eGates. Governments can acquire best-in-class passports, ID cards, driver’s licenses, and more, or even the facilities to manufacture their own. Learn more about Veridos at www.veridos.com.
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