Did you know that over 1 billion people around the world cannot prove their identity? Source

That is an unpleasant statistic. What makes it worse is that a large number of these people are below the age of 18.

According to research majority of these unidentified people are from war torn areas and remote rural settlements. Just the number of children in armed conflict zones are over 250 million.

A UNICEF publication by Graca Machel shows just how devastating the impact of armed conflict is on children. Newborns are not spared this horror. They are precious cargo in the hands of trembling parents and some even lose their parents in the chaos.

Many of these vulnerable children are left alone without even receiving a name from their parents before the latters demise. This lack of identification results from lack of/improper documentation of the child at birth.

CURRENT IDENTITY STORAGE SYSTEMS

In the Western part of the world and most of Europe, citizens enjoy a "working system". Children are given birth to in good hospitals, immunized and registered accordingly. Most families enjoy privileges such as healthcare, dental plans, access to loans and other social amenities. This is all made possible by a good and working central identification system. This identification allows the hospital to know who you are, your status, blood type and even if you have medical insurance.

On the other parts of the world, things are not so straightforward. While the developed countries have systems and servers with records and biometric data on their citizens the undeveloped countries still rely on paper records. Some places don't even have any physical records.

The importance of having identification cannot be overemphasized. Your identity is who you are. It tells the world you are a person from a place(e.g. staff of a company, citizen of a country). Your identification decides where you can be and cannot, it also informs the next party what you are eligible for and not.

The use of paper documentation is now outdated but still prominently practiced in 3rd world countries and other less developed areas. Some of these parts try to incorporate a digital system using bio-metric but the data is usually confined to a central data center. In the event of a mishap that entire database would be lost. Most of the data centers in these developing areas are fragmented. This means they exist independent of other data centers and may not be accessible by external parties.

Let's take a country like Nigeria for example.
When I applied for my driver's license I had to wait at a long queue before being led into the office. I was asked to fill a form which included my personal details such as name, height, address and even blood type. My picture was taken, then my finger prints and signature. This was then stored on their database.

Some months later I was called up for the National Youths Service Corps. I had to endure another long queue to be led into another office to fill forms and register in pretty much the same data I had done earlier. Despite having presented my Driver's license as identification I still had to do another bio-metric and signature registration for the NYSC program.

A year later I went to renew my international passport at the Government Secretariat. Again I had to fill forms and go through the whole process of bio-metric registration.

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Now compare this to an advanced country where with a simple glance at your identity card, a government official can call up all your details and quickly register you for any program you want.

Clearly there is much need for a decentralized and easily accessible data center for identifying individuals.

ADVANTAGES OF GOOD IDENTIFICATION

Easy Registration - obviously if your data is easily accessible it will make every registration process simple.

Social Amenities - Well documented people are eligible for education, healthcare and insurance benefits.

Progressive Government - in a community where everyone is well documented and easily identifiable, the government officials are inclined to work for the progress of the community.

Security - if everyone is easily identifiable, criminality is discouraged. Take for example a city like London with impressive surveillance. If you know that facial recognition will easily identify you, you will think twice about committing crime.

Eligibility - Identification can show that we are eligible for things. E.g. the Date of Birth on your driver's license shows if you are of legal age to buy alcohol. A military ID card grants you entry into restricted areas.

INTRODUCING TYKN

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Tykn is a blockchain based project aimed at providing a solution for people without identification. people will never understand, but what drove Tykn’s CEO Tey El-Rjula grew up with unfavourable circumstances. He was born in Kuwait during the Gulf war and his birth certificate was destroyed among others in the chaos. Because of this he faced many registration issues in his life.

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As you can see his driver's license has "Unknown" as the entry for the Place of Birth. Having experienced first hand the unpleasant difficulties of existing without any form of identification, Tey decided to apply the blockchain to solve this issue and help those who are still vulnerable. Tykn aims to utilise the immutable and "immortal" features of the blockchain to develop a globally accepted record of verified identification that will always be accessible.

In the next article we will discuss the core methodology that Tykn will apply to deliver this service that has the potential to literally save the identities of millions.

To learn more about this wonderful project you can follow any of the links below.
Project Website: https://tykn.tech

Products & Services: https://tykn.tech/project-zinc/

Press release: https://blog.tykn.tech/tykn-wins-best-ico-at-the-blockchain-innovation-conference-d8b650340e88

Next event: https://www.decentralized.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tykn.tech/

Medium: https://blog.tykn.tech

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tykn_tech

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https://blog.tykn.tech/the-crying-need-for-a-resilient-identity-for-the-unbanked-e2a08df8885d

https://blog.tykn.tech/tykn-welcomes-bonnie-yiu-as-head-of-strategy-56c247459ca2

https://blog.tykn.tech/tykn-at-the-world-blockchain-forum-in-dubai-b863d327c61c

DISCLAIMER: The information contained within this post shall not be taken as financial advice. I am not a financial advisor and none of your investing should be carried out based on any information presented here. You can lose all of your money by not investing wisely. The above information is for educational and awareness purposes only. Kindly Endeavor to DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.