ID Integration & MOSIP
1. Introduction
Civil registration and national identity systems are complementary components of a country's digital public infrastructure. While civil registration provides the legal record of vital events throughout a person's life, a National ID system provides individuals with a trusted means of proving their identity when accessing government and private sector services.
This page provides a high-level overview of why countries integrate OpenCRVS with National ID systems and how OpenCRVS supports these integrations. The detailed implementation guidance is provided in the technical interoperability documentation.
Where this sits: National ID integration requirements are identified during Design & Specification as part of the solution architecture and implemented during Configuration and Deployment.
2. Why integrate OpenCRVS with a National ID system?
Civil registration provides the authoritative source of truth for vital events. Every birth, death and other legally recognised event recorded in OpenCRVS represents trusted information that can be shared with other government systems.
Integrating civil registration with a National ID system enables governments to automate important identity lifecycle processes. For example:
following the registration of a birth, OpenCRVS can notify the National ID system so that a unique identity can be created for the child at birth
following the registration of a death, OpenCRVS can notify the National ID system that the individual is deceased, helping to prevent identity fraud and the continued use of a deceased person's credentials
This close relationship between civil registration and National ID forms the foundation of a nation's identity infrastructure. Together they establish trusted legal identity from birth, support efficient public service delivery and improve the integrity of government records.
3. Which National ID systems can OpenCRVS integrate with?
OpenCRVS is designed to be National ID agnostic. It does not depend on any particular identity platform and provides standard interoperability mechanisms that allow it to integrate with whichever National ID solution a country has adopted.
The interoperability guidance is organised around common business use cases rather than specific products, allowing the same architectural approach to be applied regardless of the chosen National ID platform.
OpenCRVS includes a production-ready integration library for MOSIP and e-Signet identity verification, both Open Source Digital Public Goods. Dedicated implementation guidance is available for these integrations, building on the same standard interoperability capabilities available to all National ID systems.
4. National ID integration capabilities
OpenCRVS provides configurable integration capabilities that support a range of National ID business processes.
At a high level, these include:
Identity verification — authenticate and verify the identity of informants, parents or other participants during the registration process, whether services are delivered online or in person.
Configurable business rules — determine which civil registration events should trigger interaction with the National ID system based on country-specific policies and legislation.
Registration integration — exchange information with the National ID system when a civil registration event is completed. Integrations can operate synchronously where an immediate response is required, or asynchronously where processing occurs independently.
These capabilities allow countries to implement National ID integration in a manner that aligns with their own legislation, operational processes and technical architecture.
5. Designing National ID integrations
Successful National ID integration begins with clearly defined business requirements rather than technical interfaces.
Implementation teams should first determine:
the business events that should trigger identity processes
which system is authoritative for each item of information
how identity verification should occur
what information should be exchanged
the security, privacy and consent requirements governing the integration
These requirements are captured during solution architecture before technical implementation begins.
6. MOSIP integration
MOSIP Integration Phase 3 establishes a configurable, event-driven integration framework between OpenCRVS (civil registration) and MOSIP (digital identity). All integration behaviour is driven by country-level configuration, the OpenCRVS core contains no country-specific logic.
UIN lifecycle management
Manages UIN creation, biographic correction, and life-status changes based on civil registration actions.
Identity authentication
Authenticate individuals involved in civil registration events using MOSIP e-Signet services.
Regardless of country configuration, the OpenCRVS core evaluates every civil registration action against the country’s configured MOSIP integration rules and triggers the appropriate operation.
For every civil registration event, OpenCRVS:
Evaluates the (event_type + action_type) combination.
Applies the business rules defined in the country’s configuration.
Triggers the mapped MOSIP operation.
Handles success and technical failure states.
Logs resulting outcomes to the record audit history.
6.1 Configuration Overview
Birth
Register
Configurable per country (e.g. child at birth or foundling)
UIN Creation
Record moves to ‘Awaiting external validation’
Birth (UIN creation on correction)
Approve Correction
Configurable (e.g. informant identity authenticated on correction)
UIN Creation
Record moves to ‘Awaiting external validation’
Birth
Approve Correction
Corrected field is within MOSIP biographic schema and child has not yet enrolled for biometrics (e.g. under 10 years old)
Biographic Data Update
Send and continue: no response from MOSIP is tracked
Death
Register
Individual has a MOSIP VID
Flag VID as deceased
Send and continue: no response from MOSIP is tracked
Eligibility rules are evaluated at the point of action execution. If no rule is satisfied, no MOSIP operation is triggered and the record proceeds through the standard OpenCRVS workflow.
6.2. ID Lifecycle Management
6.2.1 UIN Creation on Registration
The primary UIN creation trigger is confirmation of a birth registration by an authorised Registrar. Countries define configurable eligibility rules that determine whether and when a UIN is created.
Event type
Birth
Action type
Register
Eligibility
Configurable per country (e.g. child at birth where MOSIP is enabled)
Data shared
Configurable set of birth data fields (schema), sent via the MOSIP Packet Manager
Response handling
Record moves to ‘Awaiting external validation’ work queue
On success
On MOSIP confirmation: record moves to 'registered' and a VID is issued to the individual.
MOSIP does not return failure responses. Records that stall in 'Awaiting external validation' must be investigated directly with MOSIP and manually removed from the work queue by the country implementation team or system integrator.
6.2.2 UIN Creation on Correction
A UIN may not have been created at the time of original registration. For example, if eligibility conditions were not met. Phase 3 supports deferred UIN creation, triggered when an approved correction satisfies the eligibility rules.
Event type
Birth
Action type
Approve Correction
Eligibility
Configurable per country (e.g. parent identity authenticated as part of correction)
Data shared
Configurable schema of birth data fields
Response handling
Record moves to ‘Awaiting external validation’ work queue
On success
On MOSIP confirmation: record moves to 'registered' and a VID is issued to the individual.
3.3 UIN Biographic Corrections
When a correction approved in OpenCRVS updates biographic information (e.g. name, gender, date of birth) that was previously shared with MOSIP, an updated packet is sent to keep the MOSIP identity record in sync.
Biographic corrections for individuals already enrolled with biometrics may compromise identity integrity in MOSIP. Consult the MOSIP documentation and your implementation partner before enabling this for your country.
Event type
Birth
Action type
Approve Correction
Eligibility
Corrected field is within the MOSIP biographic data set (country-configured schema)
Data shared
Updated biographic fields
Response handling
Correct and continue: no response from MOSIP is tracked
On success
MOSIP updates the biographic record and notifies the informant or subject via SMS or email
3.4 Flag Individual as Deceased
When a death is registered for an individual with a MOSIP VID on record, OpenCRVS notifies MOSIP to flag the VID as deceased.
Event type
Death
Action type
Register
Eligibility
Individual has a MOSIP VID stored against the record
Data shared
Individual’s VID and other country configurable data such as the date of death
Response handling
Register and continue: no response from MOSIP is tracked
On success
MOSIP flags the VID as deceased and notifies the informant via SMS or email
4. Identity Authentication
OpenCRVS supports authentication of all individuals involved in civil registration events via MOSIP’s e-Signet service. Authentication is available for: Informant, Mother, Father, Spouse, Deceased, and Child, where applicable to the event type and country configuration.
Authentication is currently available in all event declaration forms. Support for authentication in the print and correction flows is forthcoming.
4.1 e-Signet Authentication Flow
Authentication is initiated from within the OpenCRVS declaration form. On success, a configurable set of form fields is pre-populated from the individual’s MOSIP ID schema data.
The field mapping from MOSIP ID schema to OpenCRVS form fields is defined in country configuration.
Loading
Authentication request in progress.
Authenticated
Authentication confirmed. Configured fields are pre-populated from MOSIP ID schema data.
CRVS system offline
OpenCRVS cannot reach e-Signet. The e-Signet button is disabled.
Timeout / technical failure
Request timed out or returned a technical error. Any data already entered in the form is preserved.
When an individual authenticates via e-Signet, MOSIP issues a Partner-Specific User Token (PSUT). This token represents the individual in the context of OpenCRVS as a MOSIP partner, and is stored against the registration record. It allows OpenCRVS to reference the individual’s MOSIP identity in subsequent flows without storing or exposing the UIN.
4.2 Identity Verification (Offline Ability)
Identity verification validates an individual's identity data entered manually or pre-populated via QR code scan against MOSIP records at the point of submission. This supports offline civil registration workflows where e-Signet is not available at the point of data entry. Verification requests are sent to MOSIP via the MOSIP Authentication SDK once the system is online, which confirms whether the captured data matches a record in the National ID system.
Offline verification validates that biographic data matches a National ID record but does not authenticate the informant and can cause downstream identity issues. e-Signet authentication is the preferred approach.
Scan QR code
QR code scanned and declaration form fields are pre-populated from encoded identity data.
Pending validation
Identity data is being validated against MOSIP records.
ID verified
Identity confirmed. Registration can proceed.
Verification failed
Identity could not be verified. The Registration Agent is prompted to review the entered data.
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