From paper to digital

Most of our documents are now produced on a computer. Yet the way trust works is still from the paper age: we show the document, the other side looks at it, and if unsure, asks. This page looks at why that is no longer enough.

Five familiar problems

• Forgery is easy. Editing a PDF or altering a photocopy takes minutes. Someone looking with the naked eye often cannot tell.
• Verification is slow. An employer who wants to know whether a diploma is real e-mails the university and waits days, sometimes weeks.
• Borders are expensive. A document used in another country needs a notary, an apostilleA certificate that lets a public document be recognised in another country (Hague Convention). and a sworn translation. Each costs money and time.
• Too much data travels. To prove your age you hand over a copy of your ID card; your name, place of birth and document number go with it. The other side stores them and sometimes loses them.
• Systems do not recognise each other.Many countries have barcode or online document checks, but each works only inside its own country. Another country's system does not recognise it.

Why a PDF is not enough

Scanning paper or sending a PDF does not solve the problem; it only produces a digital copy of the paper. Who it came from, whether it was changed and whether it is still valid remain unclear. The real solution is to put the answers to those questions into the document itself:

• The issuing institution signs it digitally; the signature exposes any change or forgery.
• The verifier checks the signature in seconds without contacting the institution.
• The person shows only the requested information; the rest stays on their phone.
• Because the rules are shared, the document is checked the same way in every country.

This is called a verifiable credentialA digital document carrying its issuer's digital signature, which software can check without contacting the issuer., and the European Union's new digital identity framework is built on it. Tamga Network builds the same framework for the Turkic world.