Resilient Digital Identity for Disaster Displaced Populations

Sameer Khanna

Resilient Digital Identity for Disaster Displaced Populations

Author(s)	Dr. Sameer Khanna
Country	United States
Abstract	Natural hazards, climate-related emergencies, conflict-linked evacuations, and infrastructure failures can abruptly separate individuals from identity documents, home institutions, communications networks, and administrative records. The resulting identity discontinuity can restrict access to emergency relief, health services, temporary accommodation, financial assistance, social protection, telecommunications, and other essential services precisely when displaced populations are most vulnerable. This study develops a Resilient Digital Identity for Disaster-Displaced Populations (RDI-DDP) framework that treats identity as continuity infrastructure rather than as a single credential. The framework combines flexible identity proofing, multi-channel authentication, offline-capable verification, federation, recoverable credentials, privacy-preserving attribute disclosure, interoperable records, accessible redress, and continuity procedures for degraded network environments. Current NIST SP 800-63-4 separates identity proofing, authentication, and federation into distinct assurance dimensions and explicitly incorporates security, privacy, equity, and usability considerations. UNHCR's registration ecosystem provides an operationally relevant example: its PRIMES applications are designed for online and offline operation, while its Biometric Identity Management System can function under weak or unavailable internet connectivity and is intended to preserve continuity of identity across operations. Because no authentic disaster-displacement dataset was supplied, the quantitative component uses a transparent simulation of 240 hypothetical identity-service scenarios distributed across four resilience architectures. Mean simulated identity-service recovery time declines from 67.73 hours in a paper-dependent architecture to 11.07 hours in a layered resilient model. The simulated association between resilience maturity and recovery time is strongly negative (r = −0.877). The findings are methodological illustrations rather than empirical estimates. The paper concludes that resilient identity should provide multiple legitimate pathways to recognition, avoid dependence on a single document, device, biometric, network, or institution, and preserve due process for individuals whose evidence is incomplete, damaged, inaccessible, or legally complex.
Keywords	digital identity; disaster displacement; identity resilience; humanitarian technology; identity proofing; offline verification; federated identity; biometrics; digital public infrastructure; inclusive identity
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 3, Issue 4, July-August 2022
Published On	2022-08-31

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American Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Resilient Digital Identity for Disaster Displaced Populations

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