COMPILED BY HAFTU GEBREZGABIHER
Ethiopia’s National Identity Program (NIDP) is to use Tech5’s T5-ABIS BE (Biometric Engine) and T5-Digital ID solutions in the pre-launch phase of its foundational national ID.
The biometric engine covers face, fingerprint and iris biometrics for identification, duplication and enrollment. After quality assessment and deduplication by the biometric engine, the T5-IDencode platform generates a digital ID via integration with the Modular Open-Source Identification Platform, Ethiopia’s chosen ID structure.
T5-Digital ID is for issuing and authenticating the IDs. The IDs can be displayed on a mobile device or printed and work on and offline, meaning the holder does not need a device, simply a hard copy of the complex T5-Cryptograph QR code. The individual has control over how their data is managed and used. Issuance is centralized and verification decentralized.
Ethiopia has high hopes for its MOSIP-based digital identity scheme called Fayida. Speaking at the recent ID4Africa summit in Marrakesh, Yodahe Zemichael said 75,000 people had already been enrolled in the pilot, with the goal of 10-12 million by the end of 2023 and 75 million by the end of 2025.
The NIDP trialed Tech5 solutions earlier in the year including the T5-ABIS. Tech5 has been integrated with MOSIP since 2019.
“We are delighted to announce that the first million digital IDs for Ethiopians will be issued over the coming months,” comments Eyob Alemu, Technology Director of the NID Program.
“With Tech5 as a partner, we are now ready to provide the next-generation digital IDs to the benefit of the residents of Ethiopia and move steadily towards our goal of providing a Digital ID to the entire population of 100 million people in Ethiopia.”
There have been a few setbacks in the pilot such as rumors about ID numbers being linked to the apocalypse, but the plan is for integration for banking, travel, education and other government services.
“The inclusive future, a vision which we very much share with the Ethiopian National ID, is happening today, with the implementation of a universal digital identity that is easily accessible and controlled solely by a citizen,” comments Rahul Parthe, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CTO of Tech5.
“We are glad to participate in this project leveraging MOSIP, the open platform in which Tech5 believes very much and has invested in over the years – indeed our ABIS and digital ID technologies were among the first to be integrated into MOSIP.”
Tech5 recently signed a deal with Contactable to provide its T5-AirSnap Face technology for selfie-based biometrics for onboarding for South African businesses.
On the same line, MOSIP (Modular Open-Source Identification Platform) recently expressed that it’s delighted to create the partnership with the National ID Program of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (NIDP), through an MoU.
The partnership will enable the NIDP to perform extensive field tests and a pilot rollout with a goal of 100,000 registrations using the Ethiopian National ID solution. It will also enable the assessment of the Ethiopian ID solution’s potential to improve efficiency, transparency, and targeted delivery of public and social services, by implementing crucial use cases.
The Government of Ethiopia and IIIT Bangalore entered into a partnership in June 2020 for a pilot implementation of MOSIP, yielding impressive results, both in a lab setting and during field tests. The NIDP has undertaken important customizations, updates, and extensions to MOSIP to suit Ethiopian requirements, with technical assistance from the MOSIP team.
This renewed partnership will focus on integration testing with external systems, field testing of authentication frameworks, reference implementation of digital ID use cases, and overall operational testing through a progressive rollout.
Speaking on behalf of NIDP, Yodahe Zemichael (Executive Director), said: “We have been working on the MOSIP platform for more than one-and-a-half years and customising it to the Ethiopian context. We re-named this ID Management platform Fayda. We believe that it is a digital public good, allowing true technology ownership for National Identification, which is a critical infrastructure element. We hope our partnership with MOSIP will be bi-directional, where NIDP also enriches MOSIP’s platform and its global base. We appreciate the close support provided by IIIT-B and the MOSIP team during this time and we look forward to more.”
Speaking on behalf of IIIT-Bangalore and MOSIP, Prof. Rajagopalan, President of MOSIP, said: “We are encouraged by the systematic vision of the NIDP towards establishing digital ID as a fundamental building block for governance. Ethiopia can lead by example for the rest of Africa and the world on how to establish a secure, privacy-preserving, and inter-operable digital ID system. We look forward to continued progress on this critical project and will extend all the support required to see it to fruition.”
MOSIP (Modular Open-Source Identification Platform) was incubated at IIIT-Bangalore as a global digital public good. The platform’s modular architecture, easy configuration, and customisation abilities, enables countries the flexibility to build their foundational digital ID systems in a cost-effective manner.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 22 JULY 2022
