As private organizations find different solutions to how to manage customer master data, governments around the world also have found their particular solution for managing citizen master data.
The question about when a citizen has to be included in a citizen master data registry of course depends on the purpose of the registry. If the single purpose for example is driving license administration it will depend on when a citizen may obtain a driving license and that will exclude citizens under a certain age depending on the rules in place. The same applies to an electoral role, immigration and cross boarder employment.
Citizen master data registries typically hold attributes as an identifier, name and address and status information. As new technology matures considerations need to be given to areas such as biometrics and speech recognition.
Who will share?
Privacy considerations are paramount around citizen master data hubs.
Even if you have an all-purpose citizen registry there will be laws limiting how public sector may exploit data identified with the registry and the identifier in use.
On the other hand, in some countries even private sector organizations may benefit from such a master data hub.
