Philippines, Morocco implemented Aadhaar-like system; more countries could follow suit, says official

The countries that have shown interest include Kenya, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore and Egypt, the official said, adding, “sharing knowledge on India’s digital economy and digital public infrastructure is one of the pillars of the G20.”

“There a group called MOSIP (Modular Open Source Identity Platform), that works out of IIIT Bangalore. Since our stack is essentially an open source stack, they use that as a basis and work with us to provide technical support or technical architectural support but it is being implemented independently in both these countries,” he said on the condition of anonymity.

The official said the countries are reaching out to understand and discuss what Aadhaar is all about but it is “not necessary that all of these countries will take it up.“

The reason for the keenness to learn more about Aadhaar ties to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were released in 2016. One goal is that all people should have a legal entity by 2030.

“As of now, the number of countries who have good legal identity for all are still very limited. So that’s why the interest of all these countries. And Aadhaar is a digital legal identity. So it goes one step further. And that also means that it is so much more flexible and usable to a higher degree,” the official said.

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Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identity number that can be obtained by residents of India, based on their biometric and demographic data. On Tuesday, UIDAI said about 1.2 % of the total operators have been suspended in the last one year, due to attempted fraudulent activities and necessary penal action has been taken in such cases.

In a press statement, it said as part of Aadhaar 2.0, a roadmap has been drawn covering areas like continued focus on Resident centricity, enhancing the use of Aadhaar, further strengthening the people’s trust on Aadhaar, adoption of new technologies and up-gradation of existing technologies as well as increasing the international outreach.

The UIDAI said a number of initiatives have been taken to strengthen the Aadhaar System in the recent past which include biometrics based de-duplication and strengthening Aadhaar enrolment and updation in the ecosystem.