Secondary Uses of Personal Identity Information: Policies, Technologies and Regulatory Framework

Although personal identity information must primarily be used for protecting and promoting the physical needs of individuals, it has also become central to the business models of the digital age due to its use for other secondary purposes, resulting in various innovative identity management (IdM) solutions in OECD countries. Nonetheless, developing countries have still not been able to address basic identification challenges such as civil registration, real-time credentials verifications, etc. This paper discusses a means of communicating identity-related concepts to policy-makers, technologists, credential issuers and other stakeholders by addressing core issues relating to secondary use of personal information. The results of a stakeholder workshop in Ghana on secondary use of personal information are presented by stating the core issues and recommendations. We propose the adaptation and application of existing IdM research and experiences from OECD countries to deal with issues involved in using personal information for secondary purposes.