The Known Traveller Digital Identity (KTDI) concept was introduced in 2018 to explore how emerging technology innovations could promote more efficient, secure and seamless travel against a backdrop of increasing traveller volumes, security requirements and constraints on resources and infrastructure capacity. Since then, the World Economic Forum and its partners have designed and built the first government-led public-private ecosystem to test these new processes and technologies in a cross-border context and embark on the development of a globally accepted digital travel credentials ecosystem.

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended global aviation, travel and tourism and accelerated the digital transition on which the sector had already begun to embark. As the use of verifiable documents (e.g. government-issued identity vaccination certificates, proof of negative COVID-19 tests) becomes a requirement for safe crossborder movement, global demand for trusted digital credentials across sectors and borders has surged. Many governments have leveraged existing capabilities to meet the need for digital credentials that enable domestic and cross-border movements.

Numerous other initiatives have also been launched as a result of the pandemic to meet this gap. This has led to a proliferation of different approaches.

Governments globally need to collaborate and employ emerging solutions to enable a more cohesive ecosystem for the industry and the wider public. Public-private as well as cross-sector collaboration is more crucial than ever before to set a clear path forward and establish a trusted framework that can adapt to changing conditions and scale quickly.