Deduplication

Introduction

Deduplication refers to the process of removing duplicate entries in the registry, thus avoiding double-dipping, and merging all the demographic fields associated with an individual or a group into a single record.

Deduplication of individuals

Individuals are deduplicated by any of the below methods or a combination of these:

Unique foundational ID

If a country has issued unique foundational IDs (like MOSIP) then deduplication is trivial -- there is only one record associated with an ID. For privacy, the foundational ID itself is not stored in the registry. Instead, a 'token' or virtual ID associated with the ID is stored.

Functional IDs

If functional IDs like driver's license, tax number, student ID etc. are accepted while registration, then deduplication across IDs is somewhat challenging if a link between these is not already established and available to the OpenG2P system. In this case, heuristics are applied to demographic data to detect potential duplicates.

No ID

In case registrants were onboarded without an ID, the deduplication is performed using heuristics on demographic data.

OpenG2P is guided by the principle of inclusion. The system does not prevent registrations of persons who do not have an ID. This is especially applicable during emergency relief like floods, war, and other calamities.

Deduplication of groups

Deduplication of groups refers to removing duplicate groups within a type of group like a family, or household. The deduplication method is context-dependent and is configured via rules. For example, if the same family has registered itself twice, it will be flagged as a duplicate. However, there are more complex scenarios - say, an individual appears in two different households while other members are different. Such cases will be flagged based on the configured rules.

Manual adjudication

Resolution of duplicates is generally done via a manual adjudication process, where an authority is visually able to inspect the data and reason for duplication. The authority can then decide whether the case is a duplicate or not based on the process set by the country/department/ministry.