Accenture and Microsoft are teaming up to build a digital ID network using blockchain technology. The project is part of a United Nations-supported project to provide legal identification to 1.1 billion people worldwide who have no official documents.

A prototype of the network has been unveiled at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

The project is being run by ID2020, a public-private consortium that aims to provide a legal identity for everyone on the planet, including displaced persons and refugees.

Among other things, the system will enable refugees who have fled their country without birth certificates or education papers to provide proof of their credentials. Interested, Australian Immigration Department?