2.8B still excluded from digital ID as new gender gaps emerge: World Bank An estimated 2.8 billion people worldwide remain shut out from government-recognized digital ID systems, creating what the World Bank describes as a new divide in the digital economy. While traditional physical identification gaps have steadily narrowed, the World Bank’s ID4D Global Dataset 2025: Trends in Identification for Development reveals that the advancement toward digital services is birthing new inequities. Notably, while the global gender gap for standard legal IDs has closed among adults for the first time on record, a persistent gender disparity is re-emerging in digital identity ownership and usage. In several middle-income countries women are now significantly less likely than men to own or use digital IDs. In countries such as Jordan, Türkiye and Ukraine researchers found notable gender gaps in digital identity adoption. It’s a pattern the authors posit could be a result of lower rates of female smartphone ownership and digital literacy, but they say more data is needed to unpack the disparity. Even where digital identity infrastructure exists, the report uncovers a pronounced gap between official rollout and actual daily use. In Vietnam, for instance, more than 70 percent of adults hold a digital ID yet fewer than 20 percent have ever used it, according to the report. In Türkiye, despite an 80 percent ownership rate, usage drops to roughly 50 percent. Authors Saniya Ansar, Julia Michal Clark and Jorin Margaux Wolff warn that because digital ID systems rely on paper or physical foundational IDs to onboard users, deploying digital credentials without fixing underlying paper-based gaps risks deepening social divides. Rather than expanding inclusion, digital ID systems risk serving only the population that is already documented, further pushing marginalized groups to the sidelines. Progress on paper, concentration in Africa Efforts to provide