GVK Industries' Keshav Reddy announces privacy-focused ID platform 'Equal'

New Delhi, Aug 16 (IANS) GVK Industries' Keshav Reddy and his co-founder Rajeev Ranjan on Wednesday announced a consent-first and privacy-focussed platform 'Equal' for Indians to securely and seamlessly share IDs with one click. 

Equal is built in partnership with India Stack (India's advanced public digital infrastructure) and DigiLocker.

"The philosophy behind Equal revolves around addressing the identity pain points experienced by the vast population of 100 million Indians on a daily basis to access places and opportunities. Documents are scattered across bedside drawers, photo libraries, instant messaging apps and cloud drives," Keshav Reddy said in a statement.

"Equal's goal, therefore, is to allow users to securely and seamlessly share their identities wherever and whenever required, through a unified front, with complete control in their hands," he added.

With around one million users already using it in beta, Equal aims to empower 100 million Indians across diverse use cases, including hotel and co-working space check-ins, real estate transactions, employee verifications, loan verifications, housing finance verification, insurance claim verification, hospital check-ins, vehicle purchase, agriculture-related onboarding and digital account onboarding, the company said.

Moreover, the company added that Equal aspires to impact lives across diverse cohorts spanning white-collar to blue-collar workers, farmers, borrowers and consumers, helping them better manage their personal identification documents.

The privacy-focused platform provides a secure and consent-first environment for users to store, manage, and share government ID and other records, including PAN, driver's licenses, health and financial records, and more.