If we don’t fix our flawed digital identity infrastructure, says Bianca Lopes, our guest on the latest New Money Review podcast, we can expect repeat after repeat of crises like Covid-19.

Digital ID is how we recognise people and things online. It’s how we know who we’re dealing with. ID systems also determine our money systems.

To understand digital identity, we need to start by remembering that our biological make-up plays a big role in determining the way we assess and interact with the outside world.

“The human brain is naturally wired to want to identify things,” says Lopes, a mathematician and identity and data expert.

“It’s how we decide, ‘Hey, this is an enemy and I need to act’, or ‘This is an opportunity’,” says Lopes.

According to Lopes, we can draw an important lesson from coronavirus.

“We’ve realised that identity is so foundational to our society,” she says.

“The pandemic has allowed us to see that cracks in the identity infrastructure exist,” she goes on.

“It’s a systemic problem. If we don’t address it at the core, we will see the consequences coming out in times of crisis more than ever.”