Overview
Universal Identity (UID) is a non-profit company that has developed the blueprint for a sustainable, pervasive, and self-regulating trust model to be the bedrock for day-to-day interactions between man, machine, and everything else. This trust model is known simply as the Universal Framework. It’s designed to be universal, private, ethical, autonomous, and secure. It operates as a ubiquitous fabric between the continuous information generated during engagement and the production and imparting of such information by participants. The Universal Framework also acknowledges that economic interest drives innovation. To this end, the trust model allows organisations to create valuable products and services upon it, whilst the network intrinsically protects the liberty of all citizens that make use of those products and services.
All-inclusive, free participation without discrimination
Citizens have full oversight and control over how their information is used
Pervasive physical and digital security keeps personal information private
Transparency is facilitated without disclosure
Consent is built-in and frictionless
Privacy is a fundamental, core principle. It matters. Always.
Our story
Back in 2015, our founders each individually realised that the soon-to-be implemented Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act would not sufficiently deter and discourage data fraud in South Africa.
In particular, they saw an opportunity for a universal identifier linked to a central repository of information. Not a consumer identifier, like what the Credit Bureaus use, but something that truly represented the story of each and every citizen.
Our mission
To enable every citizen to own and control their personal information.
Our vision
To implement a global data ecosystem, underpinned by a code of ethics and standards, that enables the identity data profiles of citizens to be ethically registered and owned by the citizens themselves, and where such identity data profiles are securely stored, safely managed, and widely accepted within the data ecosystem itself.
In doing so, we will focus on:
- promoting the principle that owning and controlling your identity data profile is a human right;
- protecting the digital and economic safety of the general public by preventing identity theft and increasing data security and trust;
- advocating for the principles of data democracy to allow all citizens, without any prejudice, to claim their identities and build data profiles to unlock access to services; and
- including those excluded from the economy because they lack the ability to provide proof of identity.
Our values
We are:
- Altruistic
- Ethical
- Innovative
- Open
- Universal