Cybersecure and Privacy-Aware Governance Framework With Face Verification ID in Digital Public Infrastructure Toward a Trusted and Secure Digital Society: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) on the development of a cybersecure and privacy-aware governance framework for Face Verification ID in Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). The review responds to a growing need for digital public services that are secure, interoperable, scalable, and socially trusted, particularly where biometric identity verification is integrated with national electronic identity systems such as NFC-based e-ID. Following a PRISMA-oriented protocol, 181 records were identified from IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, and Scopus, comprising 59, 54, and 68 articles respectively. After duplicate removal, title-abstract screening, full-text eligibility assessment, and quality assessment using seven criteria, 36 studies were included for final synthesis. The results show that the literature has developed strong technical components in self-sovereign identity, e-KYC, blockchain-enabled digital credentials, privacy-preserving biometrics, face presentation attack detection, zero-trust security, and public trust in police use of facial recognition. However, these components are still fragmented. Very few studies combine NFC e-ID assurance, face verification, liveness detection, privacy-by-design, cybersecurity risk management, interoperability governance, and law-enforcement accountability within a single DPI-oriented framework. The discussion therefore proposes a layered governance architecture that integrates identity assurance, biometric verification, cyber defence, privacy governance, interoperability orchestration, and accountability mechanisms. The review contributes a consolidated taxonomy, research gap analysis, and evaluation agenda for future DPI implementations toward a trusted and secure digital society.