Bruneian Minister of Transport and Infocommunications, Dato Seri Setia Shamhary Mustapha, recently announced that the country’s new and upcoming national digital identity system, BruneiID, is soon to launch a six-month trial phase. BruneiID is designed to enable citizens to log into online government resources using an e-Darussalam single sign-on (SSO) platform. Throughout the 6-month trial ahead of the full national launch, the government will evaluate its use as well as streamline with existing law and privacy protection rights, prior to broadening access to public services in the country.
BruneiID was an initiative born from the country’s National Digital Economy Blueprint and Digital Economy Masterplan 2025. Both initiatives have seen to the government allotting BND146.5 million ($108 million USD) for several digitization projects across the Sultanate. Three main projects to advance Brunei’s digital ecosystem development are namely the National Information Hub, Digital Identity, and Digital Payment Hub. Based on the Masterplan, BruneiID will eventually be integrated with the National Business Services for digital transactions accessible for the private sector.
The development of BruneiID is just one example which may spur further interest in concepts for data storage & utilization, digital payment systems, and other smart technologies – all of which U.S. ICT companies may offer their expertise and investment. Similar efforts have also been seen across ASEAN countries such as Indonesia’s Identitas Kependudukan Digital, Singapore’s National Digital Identity, Malaysia’s MyDigitalID, Philippines’ ePhilID, and Vietnam’s VNeID.
