73% of Filipinos now have a national digital ID. 🇵🇭
That’s 84 million registrations in a country of 115 million people. One of the highest adoption rates of digital ID systems globally.
These credentials, issued through the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys), have already been used in over 100 million transactions across both public and private services. From national and local government agencies to banks and other financial institutions.
Citizens can now verify their identity more quickly, securely, and conveniently.
One of the most impactful measures to boost adoption was linking ID issuance with birth registration. By assigning PhilSys numbers at birth, the government eliminated friction early and laid the foundation for lifelong identity coverage.
The rollout also took a digital-first approach by providing citizens with an ePhilID, a digital version of the ID that can be stored on a phone.
Standards and privacy
PhilSys was designed with international interoperability in mind. It complies with ISO/IEC 23220, the global standard for mobile eID architecture.
According to DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy, this ensures that “all credentials (mobile ID, mobile driving license, or other digital documents) issued on the eGovPH platform can be globally interoperable.”
Although PhilSys doesn’t yet use decentralized identity standards like W3C Verifiable Credentials, it borrows privacy-centric principles such as:
- Selective disclosure (only sharing the data required)
- User consent before data sharing
This shows that even in centralized systems, privacy-by-design is becoming the norm.
What this means globally
When we look at adoption numbers like this, it’s hard not to be surprised.
In both the EU and the US, the rollout of digital ID is still in progress:
- In the US, mobile driver's licenses (mDLs) are gradually rolling out state by state.
- In the EU, the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet will become mandatory in 2026.
The Philippines reminds us that meaningful digital identity adoption doesn’t always begin in the places we expect and that there’s plenty to learn from emerging markets that move fast and build smart.
