Collaboration is key: takeaways from MOSIP Connect 2025

By all measures, MOSIP Connect 2025 in Manila, was a great success. The event brought together more than 400 attendees from over 25 countries to discuss the future of digital identity infrastructure. Rich and varied topics included scaling identity solutions, connectivity challenges and (a favourite topic for NEXT) balancing security & accessibility.

International compliance and secure ID

As expected, compliance with national and international standards was high on the agenda. Everyone agrees that regulations, requirements and standardised frameworks like Aadhaar, FBI-PIV, MOSIP, and NIBSS are fundamental to ensuring consistent and interoperable digital identity infrastructure. Beyond that, these top-down requirements will ensure that national ID programmes can identify the right technologies to support them at scale. Taking biometrics as an example, not all technologies are created equally when you assess security, performance and other factors.

This led to insightful discussions around the evolving regulatory landscape, such as recent updates to Aadhaar requirements. As NEXT is one of the few companies to have cleared the new L1 certification processes, we were well placed to share insights on anti-spoofing measures, liveness detection, and biometric performance in varying conditions with senior government officials.

One of our key takeaways was the feeling that no two MOSIP implementations will be the same. Different national infrastructures require tailored solutions and will vary significantly depending on a number of factors. As each government has its own unique challenges, objectives, citizen demographics, socio economic nuances and much more, attendees were keen to understand how the ecosystem can collaborate to offer customized and agile solutions, working closely with teams on the ground to ensure smooth rollout and additional upkeep of any live-service systems. This will be an interesting trend to keep an eye on over the coming year.

Consent & integration – keys to success

Success in the rollout of any national ID scheme requires millions of citizens to provide consent for their data to be enrolled, stored and processed. As such, another key topic of discussion was better understanding how best to drive adoption of new national ID programmes.

It’s clear that biometric identification can result in significant efficiencies for governments, be it tackling fraud or the speed of identifying citizens at borders. However, some governments have historically had issues when it comes to gathering consent for the processing of biometric data. To demonstrate the importance of this topic, most countries have published guidelines requiring explicit consent for all forms of biometric authentication. Some countries have gone even further, such as Brazil’s data watchdog, preventing actors offering financial compensation in exchange for biometric data.

I have a couple of thoughts here as this all comes down to trust. Firstly, governments need to focus on identifying and selecting the right partners and technologies to make this a reality. So, the right technology components, like biometric readers and algorithms, paired with the leading system integrators. This will ensure that new systems can integrate with existing infrastructures at both a hardware and software level to deliver a quality programme.

Then, it’s about building trust with citizens, educating them on the benefits of the new ID programme and the use cases that they can now unlock. I had many discussions with government representatives in MOSIP enrolled countries regarding the difficulties they are experiencing in building trust and how to overcome these challenges. A wide range of potential solutions were discussed with great enthusiasm, but the one thing everyone can agree on is that this is a process and it is going to take some time.

With more national biometric solutions set to be rolled out in the next few years, there will be a range of new projects that will need to be completed. This presents a unique opportunity for system integrators, device manufacturers and government departments to collaborate closely to deliver swift, seamless and, most importantly, secure user experiences for citizens.

Measuring biometric modalities

Iris, face and fingerprint scanning have been part of national identification schemes for well over a decade however, this didn’t stop the topic resurfacing at the first ever MOSIP unConference which brought together delegates to shape their own agenda and discussions.

In reality, each has key use cases, strengths and weaknesses. The discussion recognised the high accuracy of iris scanners, but also its limitations in needing special cameras and a longer scanning time than other modalities. Conversely, facial recognition can be less accurate under different conditions like low light, different angles and with changes in facial expression. It is, however, relatively inexpensive and familiar to smartphone users.

Fingerprint scanning can confirm a person’s identity more accurately than facial recognition systems as they are based on 3D modelling of a unique identifier which will not change over time. So, while implementations may vary and combine multiple biometric modalities for certain use cases, the consensus was that most national ID programmes would use fingerprints as the foundation of their citizen identification.

MOSIP Connect was, once again, a fantastic event to be a part of and the above insights barely scratch the surface of discussions at the event! It was wonderful to see the interest in our legacy FAP20 solution and our new FAP 30 demo and discuss the value that Active Thermal technology can bring to national ID programmes. Biometric authentication remains a dynamic space, with new opportunities constantly emerging. For companies and governments eager to collaborate on new approaches, the potential for innovation and growth is only going to increase.