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Filtered by Editorial — 33 articles

Francis Tuffy

1 Oct. 2026

4 min read

UK Drops Plans for National Digital ID Card – So What?

The incoming UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has scrapped the government's proposed national digital identity scheme, redirecting £1.8 billion elsewhere — but the wider digital identity landscape remains largely intact.

Editorial Free

Francis Tuffy

1 Aug. 2026

5 min read

Was the Ceuta Influx a Failure of ID Management?

On 30 July 2026, a mass crossing from Morocco into Ceuta overwhelmed one of Europe's most controlled external borders and exposed the limits of identity management systems designed for orderly, controlled migration flows.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

29 July 2026

4 min read

Digital Identity Puts Land Administration on a Firmer Foundation

Land is one of a country’s most valuable economic assets. Secure and transferable land rights allow owners to use property as collateral, giving households and businesses access to finance for farming, construction and property. They also encourage inward investment by giving external investors confidence that property rights are enforceable so that development risks can be assessed reliably.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

27 May 2026

4 min read

Editorial – AI Needs Regulation, Not Just Guardrails

Over the weekend of 18-19 April 2026, Beijing staged its second ‘Human and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon’. According to Reuters, more than 300 humanoid robots took part alongside, but segregated from, 12,000 humans.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

27 April 2026

4 min read

Editorial – Metrology is the Glue of Trade

This is probably not the most attention-grabbing title for an editorial, but for a while I worked at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London, where part of the lab’s job is supporting standards work through the British Standards Institution (BSI). That experience left me with two impressions about metrology.

Editorial Free Free

Francis Tuffy

25 March 2026

4 min read

There is No Seamless Travel When You Have to Evacuate – Editorial

For the past few years, the travel industry, along with the ID and secure document community have been promoting the idea that borders can be made frictionless. And to be fair, many parts of that vision are working.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

2 March 2026

4 min read

Editorial – Is Big Tech Getting a Free Ride from Physical ID?

Over the past few years, debates around civil identity have regularly predicted the demise of physical documents and their inevitable replacement by the massive investment of tech giants in digital, and then virtual ID. I think something else is going on.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

30 Jan. 2026

5 min read

Editor’s Predictions for the Year Ahead

This time last year I predicted that 2025 would bring an acquisition wave reshaping the industry, and 2026 is now showing the effect of this.

Editorial Free Free

Francis Tuffy

23 Dec. 2025

4 min read

Building a Secure Identity Community

This year, Reconnaissance completed a rebranding exercise across its newsletters. Each title now carries a strapline that states, in a few words, what it is for. For most, this was a largely descriptive exercise. For ID & Secure Document News™ (IDN) we chose something different: a line that expresses a purpose – ‘Building a secure identity community’.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

1 Dec. 2025

3 min read

Two Roads to Digital Identity

Two announcements in October highlight how differently the US and Europe are approaching digital identity.

Editorial

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Francis Tuffy

4 Nov. 2025

3 min read

Two Roads to Digital Identity

Two announcements in October highlight how differently the US and Europe are approaching digital identity. Apple confirmed that US users will soon be able to store their passport as a digital ID in Apple Wallet, allowing them to verify their identity at selected TSA checkpoints. A few taps on your phone and your identity lives alongside your boarding pass, credit cards, car hire and hotel reservation. Days earlier, the European Commission announced €15 million in new funding to accelerate development and certification of EUDI Wallets across member states.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

28 Sept. 2025

3 min read

Let’s Celebrate the Genius of Secure Documents

Warsaw has just hosted ODDS 2025 – the Optical & Digital Document Security™ conference – and once again, the event proved to be more than just a technical gathering. It was a reminder that secure documents are not dull, bureaucratic artefacts but living examples of human ingenuity. They sit at the intersection of science, design, and trust. They deserve to be celebrated not only for the technologies they embody but for the fundamental role they play in our societies.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

3 Sept. 2025

3 min read

Before Building New ID Numbering Systems, Let’s Use What We Have

In the identity management field, innovation often comes with a sense of urgency. You identify an opportunity, work up a proposal, attend meetings, submit your bid and then (hopefully) Go! Go! Go! At this point, you already have the solution so well worked out with colleagues (and written into an annexe of the contract) that you don’t have time to reconsider what is already in place in the country’s identity framework.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

21 July 2025

4 min read

Editorial: Why is Biometric Testing So Difficult?

I don’t know whether, like me, you saw a latex face mask staring back at you from a display cabinet at Identity Week Europe, Amsterdam? I had to explore further.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

26 June 2025

3 min read

Editorial: Why Government Digital ID Must Lead on Security

Over the past year, I have found myself returning to a recurring theme: the transition from physical to digital identity is inevitable, but that transition is not without cost. With the growth of electronic identification (eID) systems comes a shift in both the nature and scale of identity-enabled financial crime.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

29 April 2025

4 min read

Editorial: Why Digital Identity Cannot be Dematerialised

During the lockdowns that typified the COVID pandemic, there was a roughly two-year period during which it was only under very special circumstances that a person could leave their house to visit a government office, a bank or cross a border. This accelerated the requirement for validating someone’s identity remotely. Of course, this ‘person-not-present’ form of ID authentication was prevalent and growing before 2020, but the pandemic accelerated its acceptance.

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Francis Tuffy

3 Feb. 2025

4 min read

Editorial: A Year of Acquisitions

The secure document and identity sector is going through a period of significant change, driven by mergers and acquisitions that I covered throughout 2024. As we start a new year, I want to take a step back and consider not just the headlines but the historical events and strategic thinking behind them.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

27 Nov. 2024

4 min read

Editorial: Governments Need CRVS, and CRVS Needs Identity

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the need for accurate public health data in crisis management, once again highlighting the importance of robust civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems.

Editorial

Francis Tuffy

29 Oct. 2024

4 min read

Is Identity Still Part of Critical Infrastructure?

The world is rapidly transitioning from physical to digital ID systems, and the approaches to this change across the globe are strikingly varied. How long can this shift to digital identity remain part of critical infrastructure when its implementation is so uneven around the globe?

Editorial

29 Sept. 2024

4 min read

Editorial: AI and QC, Prepare Now or Panic Later

As advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing accelerate, a growing sense of concern surrounds their potential to undermine the cryptographic systems that secure our digital identities.

Editorial

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