Thailand’s Electronic Transactions Development Agency plans to establish registration and oversight for verifiable credential providers in 2027, alongside pilots using national identity card data and digital document wallets. The program would cover how digital credentials are issued, presented and verified.
Verifiable credentials are digital documents that let a recipient check who issued information, whether it is authentic and whether it has been altered. They can establish attributes such as a person’s age, educational qualifications or eligibility for government benefits, rather than requiring a complete identity document for every transaction.
ETDA intends to create a VC Trusted List so agencies and members of the public can check providers’ status and trustworthiness. It will also develop assessment and monitoring procedures for services, with standards intended to support secure exchanges between different systems.
The agency says document wallets on mobile phones would let people store credentials and disclose only the information needed for a particular interaction. That would reduce repeated document submissions and the need to leave copies of national identity cards or other sensitive papers with multiple organizations.
For businesses and public agencies, credential verification would include checking an issuer and whether a document has been revoked. ETDA says these checks are intended to reduce document fraud and simplify the process of confirming a person’s rights or qualifications.
The 2027 pilots will involve partner agencies from the early design stage. Their work will address technical standards, governance and use cases, with interoperability considered before services expand across organizations.
ETDA has already developed a Thai verifiable credential architecture and reference framework with participation from 17 public and private organizations. Digital transcripts have been used as a test case for that earlier framework.
Thailand is separately considering national digital ID for Roblox account checks. That proposal concerns verifying users of an online platform, while the new credential program covers a broader range of documents and personal attributes.
The country’s Tang Rat benefits app also uses identity verification, including selfie-based registration. ETDA’s planned Digital Document Wallet pilots concern storing and presenting verifiable documents, rather than the benefits-payment function associated with that separate app.
Sources: TechTalkThai, ETDA
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
