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Good practice Imported

eKey 2.0 — Bahrain's AI-Driven Digital Identity and eKYC Platform

Bahrain · Manama · See the Bahrain profile · See the Manama profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 74% 47/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Bahrain's iGA relaunched eKey 2.0 on 9 February 2025, adding AI facial-recognition eKYC and passwordless biometric login for government and private services. Registrations passed 13,000 within one day; the platform won a Digital Identity Innovation Award in July 2026.

>13,000 registrations
Registrations within one day of launch (9 February 2025)
~14 entities
Government/private entities connected (phase 1) (2025)
eKey 2.0 — Bahrain's AI-Driven Digital Identity and eKYC Platform

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA), in partnership with Beyon Connect
Period
2025–ongoing
Keywords
digital identity, biometric authentication, eKYC, e-government infrastructure

Context

Bahrain's Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA), in partnership with Beyon Connect, relaunched its national digital-identity app as eKey 2.0 on Sunday, 9 February 2025.

Objectives

The revamped platform uses AI-based facial-recognition verification and an enhanced eKYC (Know Your Customer) process to give every citizen and resident a single, password-less biometric login for government and participating private-sector services.

Activities

The first phase connected roughly 14 government and private-sector entities, with the platform designed to expand toward the wider set of services later consolidated under Bahrain's unified MyGov app and national portal, bahrain.bh.

Results

Adoption in the first phase was immediate and measurable: iGA's Chief Executive announced that registrations for the revamped app exceeded 13,000 within a single day of launch; eKey 2.0 later won the Digital Identity Innovation Award at the Bahrain Smart Cities Summit in July 2026, roughly a year and a half after launch.

Conclusions

Public reporting to date covers registration counts and service-integration figures rather than independent audits of the facial-recognition system's accuracy, false-match rates or data-protection safeguards, which remain unverified in open sources.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M) — No public cost figures were found; conservatively banded high given the national biometric identity infrastructure and facial-recognition eKYC capability involved.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Launched February 2025 and still expanding integrations as of its July 2026 award, roughly 18 months in; banded medium.
Staffing & skills
Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) with private technology partner Beyon Connect

Conditions for success

  • National eGovernment authority ownership with a named technology partner
  • Planned integration path into the unified MyGov app and national portal

Common failure modes

  • No independent audit of the facial-recognition system's accuracy, false-match rates or data-protection safeguards has been published
  • Public reporting covers registration counts, not outcome or error-rate data

Where it fits

Governance type
national eGovernment authority with private-sector partnership
Scale
national digital-identity platform
Income level
high-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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