A new project called Bitnation is hoping to help refugees through their transition by setting them up with an emergency digital ID attached to a bitcoin wallet and a visa card. Many refugees are put in a tough position by the difficult paperwork requirements needed to open a bank account in most European countries. Their inability to identify themselves or hold funds makes it difficult to start a new life, but Bitnation is hoping to change that.

According to a statement posted on the group’s website:

Bitnation Refugee Emergency Response (BRER) is a Humanitarian Aid Project of Bitnation to facilitate and provide Emergency Services and Humanitarian Aid to refugees during the European Refugee Crisis of September 2015. Our objective is to utilize Blockchain technology to authenticate and validate identification through a Blockchain Emergency ID (BE-ID), provide dispute resolution as needed, and otherwise provide and locate needed services to refugees, including but not limited to, Bitnation Bitcoin Visa Debit Cards (BVDC). Bitnation seeks to ease the burden of Receiving States during this crisis by assisting in providing secure transactions and transitional tools required to meet the current needs of refugees, and provide economic and political solutions to refugees within the Receiving State with secure, established Open Source Blockchain technology. Bitnation seeks peaceful, diplomatic co-operation with Receiving States to help avert this crisis by extending Humanitarian Aid to the Stateless and refugees within Receiving States in harmony with the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. It has also sought to establish relations with the UNHCR, OHCHR and UNPO to determine methods of collaborative co-operation and to assist in maintaining the Public International Order and to protect refugees as our capacity allows.

Susanne Templehof, founder of Bitnation said at a recent event that this project may help refugees find ways around the roadblocks that are set up for them while entering a new country.

“We are providing emergency ID and then this visa card because most refugees will be unemployed. They won’t be legally able to get a job for several years and they can’t open a bank account,” Templehof said.

“If you are an adult man, you are used to providing for your family and then you have to wait for handouts of blankets and food from charities. We also provide family services like maps where people can say, ‘I lost this person here – I’m in Germany’. So it’s basically all built around families uniting again.I would like to see all legacy systems disappear, the most important being borders. That is the most criminal one. Just because you are born in the wrong area with a piece of paper you can be subject to a horrible government or famine or starvation,” she added.

Templehof believes that this type of technology can make governments and borders obsolete, by allowing people to opt out of the system and create independent lives of their own.

John Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. He also has a publishing company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and non-fiction writers. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page and purchase his books at his website www.JohnVibes.com.

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