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Good practice Imported

PhilSys ABIS — the AI Biometric Deduplication Behind the Philippines' 90-Million-Person National ID Rollout

Philippines · Quezon City · See the Philippines profile · See the Quezon City profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 25% 73/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

The Philippines' PhilSys uses an AI-powered biometric matching system to confirm each national ID number belongs to one unique person. By 31 October 2025, the PSA had issued permanent ID numbers to 90.29 million Filipinos — about 80% of the population — after deduplication.

90.29 million
Filipinos issued permanent PSN after deduplication (as of 31 Oct 2025)
~80%
Share of population covered (as of 31 Oct 2025)

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) — PhilSys Registry Office
Period
2018–ongoing
Keywords
digital identity, biometrics, civil registration, service delivery

Context

The Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) is the country's foundational digital ID, designed to let citizens prove their identity once and reuse that proof across government and private services instead of re-enrolling with every agency. Making that 'once-only' promise trustworthy depends on a single technical safeguard: confirming that each PhilSys Number (PSN) belongs to one, and only one, real person.

Objectives

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) set out to enforce registry uniqueness at national scale by screening every registrant's biometrics before a permanent ID number is issued.

Activities

PSA enforces uniqueness through an Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) that screens every registrant's fingerprints and facial biometrics against the full national database before a permanent ID number is issued, flagging duplicate or fraudulent registrations before they enter the registry. Biometric capture for remaining residents was still being rolled out across additional provinces as of December 2025.

Results

As of 31 October 2025, PSA had generated permanent PSNs for just over 90.29 million Filipinos — about 80% of the population — after their demographic and biometric data were verified as unique.

Conclusions

The published evidence is mainly enrolment and coverage volume rather than an independent accuracy audit of the deduplication algorithm itself, so the practice is best read as a large, real-world deployment with strong operational transparency rather than a rigorously externally evaluated one. PSA continues to warn the public against attempting double registration, noting that duplicates delay processing and undermine registry integrity.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Very high (> €5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) — PhilSys Registry Office runs enrolment and ABIS operations

Conditions for success

  • Statutory basis under the Philippine Identification System Act
  • Nationwide biometric capture infrastructure rolled out province by province
  • Public communication campaign warning against duplicate registration to protect registry integrity

Common failure modes

  • No independent accuracy audit of the ABIS deduplication algorithm has been published

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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