Mati Citizen ID

A simple digital ID number that holds information that a person has been legally verified, and entrusted by other sources.

Mati’s AI technology detects unique facial biometric characteristics of each person and creates an identity profile tied to a unique key. Although this technology is primarily used by companies for KYC (“Know Your Customer”), Mati’s purpose it to create a digital ID for everyone.

Mati ID is a national, and eventually transnational, safe digital identification for all the citizens for the use in accessing public services, healthcare, leverage banking and financial services, transportation, paying their bills, finding employment and much more. The mati ID will include 3rd party attestations, functioning like a private credit score, that will be used to avoid the near-criminal rates pay day lenders use on the poorest people today. Furthermore, we want to incentivize companies to utilize the ID to perform background checks, to pay salaries in an automated way, and potentially even ease the tax collection.

Each person will be able to obtain the digital ID once they become of age according to local regulations. That profile would be linked to a unique static key. A more basic version would be available for underaged people, in order for them to access certain services and protection.

The citizen ID would be obtained through a simple process in which the biometric characteristics of each person would be stored and linked to all their other information. The data collected would be protected by Trust-no-one protocol mechanisms, such as E2EE and Zero Knowledge, so that only the owner could safely access and consult their information through the unique keys they would create together with their facial biometric features. Each entity interested in accessing the information could only gain access relevant for each transaction or service, without the ability to keep or sharing it, and only after the user expressly gives access to it - e.g. a bank branch to one’s proof of address. After the citizen ID is generated, it is linked to a number as well as static QR code, which link to the users’ information. This means that all the user’s verifications and attentions will be transferrable over low bandwidth, 2G data connection, and using a simple SMS, similar to M-Pesa.

This solution is meant to make all these processes easier, by means of having a unified, encrypted database, which should interconnect all public and government entities, as well as financial, medical and other services providers.

Beyond our office in San Francisco, we have a significant portion of our team in Mexico city, one the countries with the highest identity fraud incidents worldwide, as well as Russia. Mexico's geographic position is key, for a large number of migrants cross the Southern and Northern borders everyday.

Our aim is to equip these ghosts with a proper identification tool so they can interact in the World economy.

We are creating a flexible identity technology by developing biometrics, mobile document scanning, and special encryption methods, in order to liberate the World from the existing data brokers, and allow the poorest with access to financial services, access to work, Government services, and other basic tools that require strong proof of identity. We are aiming this especially at non-profit and government institutions. 

The Mati ID has privacy built in at its foundation. Our team and third parties cannot have access to users information collected, but only the user may allow specific services, e.g. a bank to specific parts of their ideneity, e.g. their proof of address. Our security team uses cutting edge encryption methods such as E2EE and Zero Knowledge Proofs ensuring that no malicious third parties access the sensitive user data.

The Mati Citizen ID is very easy to implement through our simple API, for organizations, big or small. We are proud to work for companies as small as 2 people, as big as some of the largest financial companies, and even government institutions serving their citizens. Clients can customize their verification flow, according to the documents they will require from users. After a quick integration our API on any of their platforms every new user will be able to click on a "check in" button to verify their ID, much like we are used to clicking on a "check out" buttons on e-commerce sites.

Each unique user profile generated can be further used as a reliable digital identification form, so that several companies, which already use or accept the Mati Citizen ID, would not need for each user to re-identify themselves, but instead just allow a “log-in” with users who already went through our verification process.

The Mati Citizen ID is very easy to incorporate and use both for companies and users. Users just have to follow the easy steps to verify their identity the first time they use the Mati Citizen ID and, on future occasions, will be able to simply “log-in” instead of going through the verification process all over again. This is possible due to the unique features of the digital profile/ID generated.

The static, unique number\QR code generated will be useful in places where there is no internet connectivity, so that only SMS can be sent. 

Our API documentation is open to anyone interested in reading it. There is no risk of vendor lock in, since the data belongs to the companies, as it does to the users. We simply provide tools for companies, and organizations to interact with their users or constituents in an easy and cheap fashion.

We encode the Citizen ID in a public - private key combination. A person using their citizen ID can use it over sms (similar to M-Pesa) or use a QR code in regions with smartphones. When the user public key is shown to a 3rd party, say a bank branch, they will be able to access the user's verified information. When that said bank approves the account opening, or a loan, the user's profile will be updated from the branch to include this 3rd party attestation, thereby helping the user grow their identity string.

We want to meet the people where they are. That means improving our "flexible identity string" to include more general identity proofs to include non-formal documents, such as pay stubs, proof of salary, and 3rd party attestations and development of user reputation. The proof of identity can be established even without a formal ID. In a few years, we want to help build the p2p economy, where there are no 3rd parties in the middle. We believe this wave is going to be transformational for places like Africa.

Currently, Mati works with companies that engage its Mati KYC services. Mati’s clients are generally FinTech providers, companies which provide services and must verify the identities of their employees, sharing & on-demand providers, and others. Moreover, Mati is actively pursuing deals with government entities, such as the Mexican Senate and the INE (Mexican National Electoral Institute), and its main goal is to achieve a wide network of identified users, and entities which recognize such identifications, so that eventually an adoption of the Mati National ID would be possible.

Even though startups are infamous for fast turn around of employees, the mati team is composed of individuals particularly excited about the impact of ID technology. Three unique units:

- Security: in their spare time engineers review blockchain implementations and even niche government financial white papers.
- Legal & Compliance: In coming from top legal firms, our legal team participate in our project for similar unique reasons - access to impactful technology within the legal and the political domain.
- A.I.: From places like Stanford AI labs and LG r&d, our engineers find the privacy driven AI a fascinating research topic.

We already have revenue. We charge companies for user verification. It's a simple per-user pricing, with no other fees. The for profit nature of our development allows us to also partner with certain governmental and non-profit institutions and offer our services pro-bono. 

We are passionate about bringing identity for all mission to the regions in the World that most need it. We were able to push this mission through the corridors of venture capital hallways in SV, and we are now looking for additional resources that will help us bring it to the masses. We believe a strong exposure from such pristine institutions such as The World Bank and MIT will allow us to "cross the chasm" with some of the more conservative places in the World that need to see social proof before seriously considering deploying solutions in their jurisdictions.

Social proof is the primary barrier. We already work with some of the biggest tech names in the industry, and even some government programs. However, organizations that most need this technology, non-profits, and government institutions, often have the hardest time assessing viability of technology applications. A vote of confidence would go a long way in addressing that problem, and giving our solution the exposure it needs in order to "meet the people where they are."