South American City of 15,000,000 To Launch Blockchain-Based Digital Identification Services

Argentina’s capital city is teaming up with Self-Sovereign Digital Identity (SSI) protocol QuarkID to launch a digital identification service that uses the layer-2 blockchain zkSync Era.

According to a press release, Buenos Aires will roll out the blockchain-based identification initiative for its 15 million residents in October.

Citizens living in the city can download the QuarkID wallet to claim birth and marriage certificates. More documents, including proof of income and academic verification, will be available by November.

The plan is to initially roll out the service in Buenos Aires and bring it across Argentina. Says Diego Fernandez, the city government’s secretary of innovation,

“With this development, Buenos Aires becomes the first city in Latin America, and one of the first in the world, to integrate and promote this new technology and set the standard for how other countries in the region should use blockchain technology for the benefit of their people.”

Buenos Aires is launching the initiative amid controversies surrounding data collection programs. Last month, Kenya ordered the suspension of the Worldcoin (WLD) project, which offers free crypto to people who get their eyeballs scanned, over privacy concerns.

But zkSync says the digital ID program in Argentina prioritizes privacy and is capable of protecting users’ data.

“With zkSync and Ethereum as the backbone of this program, personal data stored on-chain helps mitigate identity theft and personal information attacks that are often associated with centralized data-storage technologies.”

Generated Image: Midjourney