One citizen, one digital ID
The government has moved to introduce a single lifelong digital identity for every citizen from birth, seeking to replace the need to repeatedly provide personal information while accessing health, education and other public services.
The proposed ‘Unified Digital Identity’, or ‘One-ID’, will serve as a permanent and unique identity throughout a citizen’s lifetime, according to officials.
The Information and Communication Technology Division has taken up a project for introducing the system, which is intended to give citizens access to various government services through a single identity.
The ‘Digital Service Transformation for Access and Resilience’ (D-STAR) project will be implemented by the Bangladesh Computer Council from 2026 to 2031. The project has been sent to the Planning Commission for approval.
ICT Division Secretary Mamunur Rashid Bhuiyan confirmed the matter, reports media.
Under the existing system, children receive birth registration certificates after birth, while national identity cards (NIDs) are issued after they turn 18.
The proposed system would remove that age threshold, with a One-ID planned to be issued immediately after birth.
Once introduced, citizens would no longer need to provide the same information repeatedly to different government agencies, officials said.
The government is also considering gradually bringing the functions of various existing cards under the proposed unified system.
Services currently accessed through the National Identity Card, Family Card and Farmer Card, among others, could eventually be provided through the One-ID.
Officials stressed, however, that the plan has not yet been finalised.
The government is studying experiences from the United States, Singapore, Estonia and India in developing the system.
ICT Adviser Rehan Asif Asad has described the concept as “one citizen, one digital identity, one wallet”.
Under the concept, each citizen would have a single identity card that would function as their digital identity, with plans also being considered to facilitate digital transactions through it.
The government has yet to determine what information the new identity card will contain.
According to the preliminary project proposal, identity cards are planned for nearly 18 crore citizens, based on the latest population census data of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
However, the proposed number of cards to be produced and printed is 20 crore.
Each polycarbonate chip card would cost US$2, equivalent to around Tk 246 at the current exchange rate, for production and printing.
Distribution and delivery would cost another US$1, or around Tk 123, per card.
The total cost of producing, printing, distributing and delivering each card would therefore be around Tk 369.
The total estimated cost of the D-STAR project is Tk 9,193 crore.
Of this, the government would provide Tk 7,663 crore, while Tk 1,530 crore would come from a World Bank loan.
The largest component of the project would be card production and printing, biometric data collection and distribution, for which Tk 7,380 crore has been proposed.
Bangladesh currently uses multiple forms of identity and identification numbers, including national identity cards, birth registration, passports, driving licences and Taxpayer Identification Numbers.
Experts say effective interconnection among these databases could eliminate the need to collect the same information repeatedly from citizens.
Such integration could reduce public inconvenience in accessing government services while making service delivery simpler and more efficient, they said.
