‘The UK Now Has Digital ID Cards, in All but Name’
The year opened with a characteristically ‘British’ approach to identity: no overt national ID card, but a de facto digital identity system constructed from government platforms, KYC schemes and emerging mobile credentials.
The article argued that GOV.UK services, sectoral eID mechanisms and plans for mobile driving licences together delivered ID-card-like functionality without a single physical token. It set the tone for 2025: identity was moving from standalone documents to ecosystems and platforms, with governance and architecture as important as the physical card.
‘Survey Reveals Lack of Clear Regulations and Standards for PQC Adoption’
In February, attention shifted to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Survey data showed strong agreement that quantum threats mattered for identity documents with 10-year lifetimes, but also a clear sense that regulation, standards and implementation guidance were lagging.
The article showed suppliers and issuers wanting to act, but constrained by uncertainty around algorithm choices, migration paths and interoperability. It framed PQC not as an abstract research topic, but as an inevitable futureproofing exercise for passports, ID cards and eID schemes.
‘Identity in Crisis – Digital or Physical?’
March used crisis scenarios to ask how a person actually reconstructed their legal and digital existence after a catastrophe? The editorial perspective was clear: in extreme conditions, physical identity documents remained decisive evidence for re-establishing rights, re-opening accounts and accessing services. Digital credentials were valuable, but only if devices, networks and back-end systems survived.
‘Why Digital Identity Cannot Be Dematerialised’
April pushed back against the rhetoric of ‘dematerialised’ identity. The article pointed out that digital ID was highly material – dependent on secure chips, phones, servers, cables and power.
Alongside this, the coverage of digital driving licences and their linkage to the EUDI Wallet underlined that mobile credentials were being designed as extensions of physical licences, not replacements. The message was clear: the future was not purely virtual identity, but phygital architectures in which robust physical documents and cryptographic digital credentials were tightly coupled.
‘What Happens to My Digital ID When the Power Goes Out?’
Real-world power failures and airport IT outages became a reason for examining digital-only identity models. May’s editorial asked what happened to identity wallets, cloud-based verification and API-driven KYC when power or connectivity collapsed for days rather than minutes.
The conclusion was pragmatic: critical services needed inspectable physical documents and manual processes, even if day-to-day operations were highly digital. That made hybrid identity not a philosophical choice but a resilience requirement.
‘Design and Innovation in ID Recognised at HSP Latin America 2025’
Mid-year, the spotlight moved to High Security Printing™ (HSP) Latin America, where new regional passports and ID cards showed what contemporary document security looked like. The article detailed polycarbonate datapages and ID cards with transparent windows, multi-image laser engravings, sophisticated optically variable elements, complex UV designs and secure chips ready for advanced protocols.
‘Why Biometric Testing is So Difficult’
July went into the details of biometric robustness. The article explored how to build realistic test regimes for presentation attacks, deepfake-style spoofs and adversarial artefacts.
It explained why representative datasets were hard to obtain, why lab conditions often understated real-world risk, and why procurement needed to ask for evidence of rigorous, independent testing. Biometrics were treated as central to future identity verification, but only if they were engineered and evaluated against AI-enabled threats from the start.
‘Before Building New ID Numbering Systems, Let’s Use What We Have’
August took a system-engineering view. Rather than creating new ID numbers and registries for each project, the article argued for rationalising and linking existing identifiers – civil registration, tax, social security, electoral – under clear legal and architectural frameworks. New digital identity services were to sit on top of these foundations via interoperable platforms and APIs, not parallel databases.
‘Secure Documents at the Crossroads of Optical and Digital Innovation’
The ODDS 2025 coverage in September positioned passports and ID cards at the intersection of optical physics and digital security. The article surveyed nanostructured DOVIDs, microoptics, machine-readable features and smartphone-based inspection tools, but kept returning to a central point: all of this innovation was rooted in the physical document.
‘Safe Streets and Secure Citizen ID in San Salvador’
October’s review of the XX1 CLARCIEV (Meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Council of Civil Registry, Identities and Vital Statistics) included coverage of El Salvador’s Digital DUI, a digital counterpart to the national identity card.
Built on ISO/IEC 18013-5 and OpenID4VP, the Digital DUI was designed for use in mobile wallets and online services while remaining linked to the physical document. The article highlighted interoperability, cross-border ambitions and integration with civil registration as major benefits of the project.
‘Two Roads to Digital Identity’
November’s edition compared two major approaches to digital identity: US passport integration into Apple Wallet and EU funding for EUDI Wallet rollout and certification.
The editorial framed this as a choice between private platform-centred wallets (Apple/Google in the US) and state-governed public-infrastructure wallets (EUDI in Europe). It analysed implications for control of credentials, liability, competition and citizen trust.
‘HSP Asia 2025: Shaping the Identity Agenda’
The conference review of HSP Asia pulled together the impacts of AI and optical technologies.
The pre-conference workshop ‘The Impact of AI in Identity’ argued that AI-enabled attacks and defences needed to be assumed at the specification stage of new credentials and systems, not treated as afterthoughts.
