Israel’s National Cyber Directorate has published a draft national digital identification strategy that would gradually let banks, insurers, health providers and communications companies verify customers through the government’s identification system, and would create a national wallet for state-issued documents. The draft is open for public comment until November 30.
The directorate, which is presenting the strategy during national cyber defense week, drew it up with the National Digital Directorate, the Population and Immigration Authority, the Finance Ministry’s budget division, the Accountant General and the Bank of Israel. About 5.5 million users are registered with the government identification system, but residents still have to register and identify themselves separately with many organizations, the directorate said.
Under the plan, a bank or insurance company could confirm a customer’s identity through the national system without its own identification process or a photo of the customer’s ID card. Accounts with private companies would stay separate, the government would have no access to activity in them, and the national system’s only role would be to verify identity. Private organizations would join voluntarily and in stages, assessed on criteria including public benefit, the service’s risk level and their ability to meet technical and legal conditions, according to Israel Defense. Relying on the system would not replace full know-your-customer procedures but would reinforce onboarding and other sensitive verification steps.
The planned wallet would hold certificates, licenses, permits and other official documents issued by the state, letting residents present and verify them, prove eligibility for services and share required information from their phones, including at in-person counters. Physical documents would still be issued. The draft calls for selective disclosure, so users can prove they meet a requirement without revealing everything on a credential, and for a framework to gradually give digital ID cards the same standing as physical ones, which would require changes to the law.
A steering committee formed in June 2025 reviewed approaches in Belgium, Estonia, Australia, Britain, Singapore and the European Union and concluded that a centralized government model suits a country of Israel’s size better than licensing a private operator. A five-year implementation plan will be drafted separately, and the economic model and the legal treatment of service fees will be set later.
The directorate says copies of ID cards and personal documents are passed to and stored by many organizations, sometimes without adequate protection, raising the risk of leaks and impersonation, and that verifying identity through a national infrastructure would reduce the need to collect them. “Digital identification is no longer a standalone technology component but a national trust infrastructure that is a precondition for an advanced digital economy,” said Naama Ben Zvi, head of the directorate’s identification and biometric applications unit.
Sources: Israel National Cyber Directorate, Israel Defense
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
