Identity tool for the world

India-made MOSIP is helping developing nations to build inclusive and targeted programmes for their citizens, write Shivani Shinde Sourabh Lele

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The G20 summit in New Delhi recognised the importance of digital public infrastructure (DPI) for accelerating sustainable development goals. Importantly, the summit declaration highlighted the use of open source software to deliver services for the society and standards for such work. 

The declaration would have cheered a group of people working at the International Institute Information Technology-Bangalore (IIIT-B) who have developed, using open source software, the world's first foundational digital identity system called Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP).

Around 11 countries, including Philippines, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Ethiopia, are at various stages of adopting MOSIP to build their own version of a digital identity system like India's Aadhaar. As many as 94 million people have registered on MOSIP-based systems in Africa, Latin America and South East Asia.

To understand the importance of MOSIP we need to know a little about the digital identification solutions (DIS) market. The DIS sector is projected to grow from $34.5 billion in 2023 to $83.2 billion in 2028, a compound annual growth rate of 19.3 per cent, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets, a market research platform. Services powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and their adoption by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are powering the market's growth, said the report.