Most governments have tried to create identity platforms that do not work. They pour money into technology, start with high hopes, and fold after a few years due to political pressures. Former NADRA chair Tariq Malik has devoted his life to finding out why, and recently, Okta Ventures picked him as one of the 25 people on earth who can change that.
Tariq Malik was included in the list of Identity 25 of 2026 by Okta Ventures, which is the venture capital arm of the American-based digital identity firm Okta. The Okta Ventures’ Identity 25 is a list of the top twenty-five developers, strategists, businessmen, and public servants who will shape the future of digital identity. Recognition in the Identity 25 list granted Tariq Malik the honor to be featured on a Nasdaq billboard in Times Square, New York City.
Tariq Malik’s lifelong problem-solving challenge
In the featured interview with Okta, Malik was very precise in diagnosing what causes failure to digital identity systems around the world. It is not about technology that causes success or failure, Malik explained, but about whether the governance system of digital identity can survive political pressure.
Such a sentence contains a lifetime of learning. Through all the ups and downs in Pakistan’s political landscape, Malik has overseen and safeguarded the technology of NADRA. In 2013, he left office as the chairman after serving his full three-year term. He knows that identification systems in the developing world have collapsed not due to poor engineering, but due to institutional neglect of the dangers posed by such systems.
His recommendations are clear. The identity system should be at the very heart of governance architecture and protected from the whims of any single government through institutional autonomy and legal and procedural mechanisms.
Three trends shaping digital identities worldwide
Malik used his talk at Okta as an opportunity to lay out three key trends that are influencing global thinking around digital identity, starting with the move away from passwords toward systems that provide both greater security and greater convenience.
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However, it is the third and most significant one that is the emergence of a unified trust layer, integrating identity, data, and artificial intelligence together. This fusion does not lie in the future; rather, it is happening now, and its implications are already changing the way digital governance systems function, and according to Malik, it poses the greatest challenge to all governments developing identity systems in the coming decade.
From NADRA to the World Bank: A global career
The Tariq Malik digital identity identification system is part of a global career that has seen him travel from Pakistan to Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia after leaving NADRA. His current role involves advising the World Bank’s Identification for Development program, while he was formerly the lead technical advisor for digital identities and governance at the UNDP.
The website Apolitical listed him among the hundred most influential people on digital government in the world. The One World Identity included him in their Top 100 Digital Influencers. ID World International Congress in Italy presented him with their Outstanding Achievement Award in 2009.
Okta Identity 25 brings global private sector validation to a career made at the junction of technology, governance, and citizenry – where one glitch makes it impossible for millions of citizens to gain access to services without which their citizenship is meaningless.
