--- title: "Avalanche Powers UAE Identity Vault for 12.5M People" date: 2026-09-14 author: "Kelvin Scott" featured_image: "https://coinlaw.io/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/avalanche-l1-uaepass-blockchain-id.jpg" categories: - name: "Compliance" url: "/compliance.md" tags: - name: "News" url: "/tag/news.md" --- # Avalanche Powers UAE Identity Vault for 12.5M People Avalanche said on September 14, 2026 that the UAEPASS Digital Vault, the document layer of the UAE’s national identity platform, now runs on a dedicated Avalanche L1. TDRA, the federal authority overseeing UAEPASS, has not publicly named the chain. ## Key Takeaways - Avalanche says the UAEPASS Digital Vault, used by 12.5 million people, has moved to a dedicated Avalanche L1. - TDRA describes the Digital Vault only as powered by blockchain on its own pages and names no protocol. - UAEPASS connects more than 350 government and private-sector entities and over 15,000 services nationwide. - California’s DMV put 42 million vehicle titles on a DMV-run Avalanche chain in July 2024. - UAEPASS holders see no change to how they request, hold or share verified documents today. ## What We Know? **UAEPASS** is the UAE’s national digital identity platform, operated under [TDRA](https://tdra.gov.ae/en/About/initiatives/mgov/uae-pass), the **Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority**. It is how citizens, residents and visitors authenticate, sign documents and reach public and private services online. The platform’s own figures put usage at **12.5 million** people, **15,000** services and **350** connected entities. Inside it sits the Digital Vault, the component that issues, stores and shares verified documents such as trade licenses, degrees and address proofs. Avalanche’s [announcement](https://www.avax.network/about/blog/uaes-identity-system-serving-12-million-people-upgrades-to-avalanche) states the Vault now runs on an Avalanche L1, meaning blockspace dedicated to the Vault alone, and frames the change as support for “**continued growth in digital identity and verifiable documents across the country.**“ > BREAKING: The UAE is using Avalanche to power its national digital identity infrastructure, serving 12M+ people > > UAE PASS is the country’s national digital identification system- it gives citizens, residents, and visitors a secure way to verify their identity, sign documents and… [pic.twitter.com/J0w3QWc9Wg](https://t.co/J0w3QWc9Wg) > > — Avalanche🔺 (@avax) [September 14, 2026](https://x.com/avax/status/2099455189837025417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) ## What We Don’t Know? No TDRA statement, procurement notice or technical document publicly names Avalanche. TDRA’s UAEPASS material says the Vault is powered by blockchain and stops there. That leaves a short list of open questions, each of which a compliance officer relying on a UAEPASS document would want answered: - **Which chain or L1 identifier the Vault writes to, and who operates its validators?** - **Whether document hashes, full credentials or only revocation state go on chain?** - **What audit covers the contracts, and which firm performed it?** - **When the migration completed, and whether any prior chain still holds records?** The announcement establishes that [Avalanche](https://coinlaw.io/avalanche-avax-statistics/) describes itself as the infrastructure. It does not establish an independently verifiable operating record, and those are different claims. ## Why a Dedicated L1 Changes the Verification Math? Document verification today is duplicated work. A bank opening an account, a university checking a degree and a registrar processing a vehicle transfer each run their own check on paper they cannot independently confirm. Reusable credentials collapse that into a lookup against the issuer. Cryptography settled its half of this a decade ago. The hard part is an issuer every institution already accepts, which is why national identity platforms, rather than bank consortium pilots, keep becoming the places [verifiable credentials and KYC compliance](https://coinlaw.io/kyc-compliance-in-crypto-statistics/) actually get used. Chains with shared blockspace struggle here for a plain reason: a verification at a bank counter cannot queue behind unrelated traffic, and the operator cannot have its throughput set by someone else’s activity. California’s DMV reached the same architecture from a different direction, running its 42 million digitized titles on a permissioned **Avalanche chain** the agency operates itself. Two authorities, two record types, one structural answer. ## Why It Matters? Control is the part public institutions weigh hardest. A dedicated L1 keeps membership, permissioning and configuration with the operator instead of inheriting them, which matters when an authority holds statutory accountability for records 12.5 million people depend on. Government procurement is slow and heavily documented precisely because those consequences are public. The live issue is the gap between vendor announcement and official confirmation. Institutions that accept UAEPASS credentials as [identity assurance](https://coinlaw.io/synthetic-identity-fraud-statistics/) are relying on an infrastructure layer whose operator has not described it publicly. UAEPASS holders need take no action, and the Vault behaves as it did before. For the 350 entities downstream, the useful record remains the Vault’s own sharing log, which shows which institution received which document and when. Definition of Blockchain. Link to full glossary entry follows the description.**Blockchain**A distributed digital ledger that records transactions across a network, with each block cryptographically linked to the previous one for security. [Read more](https://coinlaw.io/glossary/blockchain/) Definition of Layer 1. Link to full glossary entry follows the description.**Layer 1**A Layer 1 is the base [blockchain](https://coinlaw.io/glossary/blockchain/) layer that settles its own transactions, enforces its own consensus, and secures its own ledger. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana. [Read more](https://coinlaw.io/glossary/layer-1/)