The challenge
Foreign workers need a practical way to prove their legal identity when physical documents are unavailable.
My contribution
Research, system architecture, and technical prototyping in a three-person team. UI design by Shihab Dewan.
The outcome
A digital identity and NFC verification prototype that reached the Godam Lah! 2.0 national hackathon finals.
A System Born from Crisis
Kerja-Kad is a digital identity and verification system designed for all foreign workers in Malaysia, regardless of nationality. The system was born from a real crisis: thousands of legal foreign workers face detention, harassment, and denial of basic services because they cannot prove their legal status in the moment it matters. Legal workers are frequently treated like criminals simply because their passports are held by employers.
Kerja-Kad solves this with a robust dual-application framework: a virtual card, an NFC physical card, and a real-time verification portal.
Field Research & Hard Data
System Prototype & UX Psychology
Virtual Identity & Autonomy Bias
The virtual card feature gives workers something they've never had: direct access to their own legal record without employer involvement. Restoring a sense of control and autonomy was just as important to the system architecture as the functional verification.
By displaying their name, work permit number, employer, and real-time permit status prominently on the Home Screen, the worker feels empowered. Research on decision-making under stress shows that people under threat revert to the simplest possible actions—we architected the app to be fully usable within a maximum of 3 taps.
NFC Bridge & Trust Calibration
A purely digital app often faces skepticism from ground-level authorities. We designed a physical NFC card to act as a tangible bridge. The worker easily links this physical card to their profile via the Link Card Interface.
When an immigration officer scans the card, the tap-and-verify flow feels instantaneous and definitive. We programmed the output using a strict green/amber/red status system with zero ambiguity. Officers under pressure make faster, fairer decisions when the system gives clear visual signals rather than complex data sets.
Emergency Support Ecosystem
Beyond verification, the system protects vulnerable workers. The Help and Resources screen provides a live GPS map showing the nearest police stations, hospitals, and immigration offices.
More critically, it features one-tap emergency contacts tailored to the worker's specific embassy and language, establishing an immediate lifeline during crises.
