Ken Banks Profile Picture

Ken Banks

image of a young boy eating some food

How digital identity could be used to monitor food and cash rations

As we go about our social purpose work we regularly get to speak to local, national and international non-profit organisations. Over the years, we’ve found that many struggle to understand the many ways digital identity solutions might help them in their work.  As part of our wider efforts to help the sector make sense of the technology, today we’re publishing the first of six articles looking at the use of digital identities in six different humanitarian and environmental settings. Please note that, while the technology use case is real, the scenarios are hypothetical in nature, and the projects do not

4 min read
an image of two joyful people, looking at each other and laughing together

African Conservation Challenge: digital identity to foster trusted community engagement

We’re excited to announce the launch of our latest social purpose initiative – an African Conservation Challenge exploring the use of digital identities to help foster authentic, trusted, dignified online dialogue between communities and other stakeholders engaged in conservation across the Southern Africa region. The Challenge is open to individuals and organisations based anywhere in Africa, and comes with a prize of $15,000.   Background Historically, rural voices have been either missing or largely ignored in much of the debate and decision making around the management of natural resources, particularly wildlife, in Africa. It is widely

4 min read
Social events across 2020 and 2021, depicting the climate crisis, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the COVID-19 pandemic

White paper: Social purpose in a time of crisis

Is the true measure of a company how it responds in a crisis, or what it does the rest of the time? With a global pandemic raging, and one of the largest global movements for racial equality taking hold, now might be a better time than any to find out. This paper looks at the emergence of social purpose in the corporate world and how companies have responded to Covid and the death of George Floyd – two of the most significant events of recent times.   Contents: Corporate social responsibility. Defining mission and vision statements. Corporate responses to BLM.

1 min read

Celebrating International Identity Day 2020

Today marks International Identity Day. It falls on September 16th in recognition of Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 , which commits the international community to providing a means of identity to all by 2030. As we celebrate today, it’s worth reminding ourselves what it means to not be able to prove who you are.  In the developed world, we’re used to providing identification even for routine transactions such as opening a mobile phone account at a local store. We can readily produce a combination of photo ID, proof of bank details and a utility bill to confirm our

3 min read

Social purpose in a time of crisis

Events over recent weeks have been unprecedented. At Yoti, we have been inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and wholeheartedly support calls for the end of inequality and exclusion wherever it exists and in whatever form it takes.  Racial equality is very much an issue of identity, and being a digital identity company the issues at hand are more pertinent to us than for many other companies. As signatories of the Safe Face Pledge, we have made a public commitment addressing harmful bias in artificial intelligence technology and embedded transparency into our business practices.  Today, we are releasing a

2 min read
an image of an Argentinian identity card with the key identifying details redacted

People ask me: What do you mean by ‘digital identity’?

This is the third field diary entry from Paz, one of our Digital Identity Fellows. Her year-long research project is focused on unravelling what digital identity, and identity in general, means to the unemployed and under-employed individuals receiving support from public job centres and local labour organisations in Gran Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata in Argentina. ***** The image at the top of this article is a photo I took of a piece of paper with some phone contacts I was given at a public job centre office. They had ‘recycled’ people’s ID photocopies. I walked away with

9 min read