City of Taipei Confirms It's Testing IOTA Tech for ID

Taiwan's capital city of Taipei is working with the IOTA Foundation to bring Tangle - IOTA's answer to blockchain - to its citizen identification plans.

Department of Information Technology commissioner Wei-bin Lee confirmed that Taipei would be partnering with IOTA and local startup BiiLabs for its Digital Citizen Card project, telling CoinDesk that the effort was one of many proof-of-concept plans the city had.

Taipei will specifically be using IOTA's Tangle ID service for several projects, he said, though he did not elaborate beyond the Digital Citizen project.

The Digital Citizen Card will act as a tamper-proof identification system, protecting users from identity theft, according to CrowdFund Insider.

Lee elaborated in an email to CoinDesk:

That being said, the commissioner also said the city is open to other proposals which may help Taipei further develop its goals of becoming a "smart city." As such, the city will work with any other available technologies, he told CoinDesk.

While Taipei is testing IOTA's tech, the city is not yet using any type of cryptocurrency, Lee said.

The details of upcoming projects have not yet been discussed, but IOTA has been invited to set up an office in Taipei to facilitate future projects, he said.

For the moment, the Department of Information Technology, BiiLabs and the foundation will continue discussing project proposals to establish proofs of concept. The three groups formed a task force to work on the details for these projects.

Lee concluded:

Michael del Castillo contributed reporting to this article.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify information about Iota's Tangle technology.

Taipei image via Shutterstock