Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, is taking major steps to integrate its bureaucracy with blockchain technology. Starting in October, the city’s 15 million residents will be able to obtain identity documents through a digital wallet. according to An announcement was made on September 28th.
The first documents to be made available on-chain include birth and marriage certificates, as well as proof of income and education. The announcement states that health data and payment management will be integrated in the future, and a roadmap to roll out blockchain-based solutions nationwide will be finalized by the end of 2023.
Behind the project’s infrastructure is QuarkID, a digital identity protocol built by Web3 company Extrimian. The QuarkID wallet is powered by zkSync Era, an Ethereum scaling protocol that uses zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups). This technology allows one party to prove to another party that a statement is true without revealing any specific information about the statement itself.
¡ Hello Buenos Aires!Welcome to ZK country
Buenos Aires is working with @Quark_ID Providing digital identity services to millions of citizens in the city, zkSync Era serves as the anchor of the initiative.
learn more: https://t.co/C2ogl1qobc
Too long; dr… pic.twitter.com/H2doBrotvM
— zkSync ∎ (@zksync) September 28, 2023
“This is an important step towards a safer and more efficient future for government services in Latin America,” said Extrimian CEO Guillermo Villanueva.
The information stored in the wallet will be self-sovereign, enabling citizens to manage the delivery of their credentials when interacting with governments, businesses and other individuals. The zkSync Era will act as QuarkID’s settlement layer, ensuring that every citizen holds the correct credentials.
The Argentinian government and the city of Buenos Aires want their digital identity framework to become a public good. Diego Fernandez, Buenos Aires Innovation Minister, said:
“With this development, Buenos Aires becomes the first city in Latin America and the first in the world to integrate and promote this new technology and set the stage for how other countries in the region can use blockchain technology. Set standards. Their people.”
Argentinian officials are investigating a similar initiative in the country: the digital identity project Worldcoin. In August, local authorities disclosed an investigation into privacy issues related to Worldcoin’s collection, storage and use of customer data.
Worldcoin has also come under scrutiny in Europe and Africa since its global launch in July. The project, founded by OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, collects retinal scans to authenticate users.
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