Designing a framework for a unified electronic identity system: Nigeria a case study.

Abstract

The advent of the Internet has popularized online transactions, particularly eCommerce, eGovernment, and ePayment among others. However, identity theft is one of the major problems inhibiting the successful adoption of this medium of business transaction because it is public in nature and devoid of face-to-face (F2F) interaction. Each platform of business transaction is associated with a unique identification system and presently an individual may be carrying a barrage of ID cards such as: the Driver’s License (for driver’s identification); the National ID Card (for national identification); the International passport (for International travels); and several payment cards depending on the number of bank accounts an individual operates: Personal, Salary and Business among others. In this paper, a Unified Identity System is proposed where single electronic identity (eID) is issued that can be used across the various platforms of business transaction. The activity/state diagram of the model is presented, and the means of authentication is based on the Secure Assertion Markup Language (SAML) framework.

KEYWORDS: eIdentity, SAML, eCard, ATM, and Identity Management