Key concepts A birth certificate is a personal document issued by a competent authority of the State following the registration of the child’s birth, which serves as legal proof of the child’s identity, including the child’s name, date and place of birth, sex and parentage. A birth notification is the notice of the occurrence of birth by health-care providers or other actors prior to the registration in the civil registry.7 Birth registration is the process of recording a child’s birth. It is a permanent and official record of a child’s existence and provides legal recognition of that child’s identity (legal identity – see below). It establishes a legal record of where the child was born and who the child’s parents are. Civil registration is defined as the registration of major life events relating to civil status, such as births, deaths and marriage through the CRVS Systems. It is a fundamental government responsibility towards all people in its territory, including forcibly displaced and stateless persons, as enshrined in international human rights law. 7 8 9 10 11 Legal identity includes the basic characteristics of an individual’s identity, e.g. name, sex, and place and date of birth, conferred through registration and the issuance of a certificate by an authorized civil registration authority. In the absence of birth registration, legal identity may be conferred by a legally recognized identification authority; this system should be linked to the civil registration system to ensure a holistic approach to legal identity from birth to death. Legal identity is retired by the issuance of a death certificate by the civil registration authority upon registration of death.8 Proof of legal identity is a credential, such as birth certificate, identity card or digital identity credential9 that is recognized as proof of legal identity under national law.10 A stateless person is a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.11 Note: For definitions of asylum-seekers, refugees and IDPs, see UNHCR master glossary. UNDESA, “Guidelines on the legislative framework for civil registration, vital statistics and identity management systems”, Studies in Methods, Series F, No. 123 (New York, United Nations, 2023). https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic-social/ Standards-and-Methods/files/Handbooks/crvs/CRVS_GOLF_Final-E.pdf. S. Mrkić, “United Nations strategy for legal identity for all: Concept note developed by the United Nations Legal Identity Expert Group” (2019), para. 12. https://unstats.un.org/legal-identity-agenda/documents/UN-Strategy-for-LIA.pdf. United Nations, “United Nations legal identity agenda”, no date. https://unstats.un.org/legal-identity-agenda (accessed 19 December 2024). A credential is a physical object or digital structure that authoritatively binds an individual’s proofed identity, via an identifier/s, to at least one authenticator possessed and controlled by the individual. See World Bank, “ID4D practitioner’s guide: Version 1.0” (Washington, D.C., World Bank, 2019). https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/248371559325561562/pdf/ID4DPractitioner-s-Guide.pdf. Mrkić, “United Nations strategy for legal identity for all”, para. 15. United Nations, “United Nations legal identity agenda”, 2019. UNGA, “Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons”, United Nations Treaty Series, vol. 360, pp. 117–207 (adopted 28 September 1954), art. 1. https://www.refworld.org/legal/agreements/unga/1954/en/32744. Birth registration of forcibly displaced and stateless persons 5