Non-negotiable pillars of Ja’s digital transformation
Published:Thursday | January 22, 2026 | 12:10 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
As a contributor to the Joint Select Committee on NIDS in January 2021, I strongly recommend resisting any proposal to suspend or dilute the Data Protection Act, including the recent suggestion raised by Minister Phillips at the Public Accounts and Appropriations Committee (PAAC).
From a systems engineering perspective, the Data Protection Act is not a policy convenience, it is a foundational trust layer.
In a centrally managed, government-owned identity architecture adopted by the Government of Jamaica (as opposed to a decentralized, citizen-owned model), public adoption is mathematically and behaviourally dependent on trust guarantees. Remove or weaken that layer and adoption collapses, rendering the entire system ineffective regardless of technical capability.
Suspending the Act would therefore undermine the very outcomes it is intended to accelerate.
A more rational line of inquiry is why NIDS has not yet been fully leveraged to solve the duplication of benefits that triggered this proposal in the first place. Identity resolution and de-duplication are core design objectives of NIDS; if those objectives are not being realized, the issue lies in implementation and integration, not legislation.
Further, it is reasonable to ask why benefit distribution is not being executed using a combined NIDS + JamDex Digital Currency.
These systems were explicitly designed to interoperate:
• NIDS provides trusted identity and uniqueness
• JamDex provides efficient, auditable, low-friction fund disbursement
Together, they form a closed-loop system for transparent, targeted, and accountable transfers.
Finally, this moment should not be treated as a constraint but as a catalyst. Advances in AI will inevitably drive discussions around Universal Basic Income, which is precisely why actors such as Sam Altman CEO of OpenAI/ChatGPT) have already launched decentralized digital identity and currency systems like Worldcoin. The direction of travel is clear.
The correct response is not to weaken safeguards, but to complete the system as designed.
PETER WRIGHT
Engineer