authID EinStrong Foundation Case Study

The EinStrong Foundation delivers conditional basic income to single mothers and others living in poverty across four of the world’s most demanding environments. Through their partnership with authID, this US-based global nonprofit has overcome the fundamental challenge of identity verification for populations without formal documentation, demonstrating how advanced biometric technology can serve the world’s most vulnerable communities while maintaining the highest standards of security and privacy.

The EinStrong Foundation emerged as a privately funded global nonprofit organization in 2019, founded with an ambitious mission to address three critical global challenges: climate change, poverty, and social inequality. The organization specifically focuses on education as a pathway to addressing social inequality, recognizing that systemic change requires targeted, technology-driven solutions that can scale globally.

The foundation’s approach differs significantly from traditional nonprofit models. Rather than attempting to solve these massive problems through broad initiatives, EinStrong concentrates its efforts on carefully designed, technology-enabled programs that can demonstrate measurable impact while building scalable solutions for future expansion.

EinStrong’s flagship initiative, the ESi Mom project, represents a groundbreaking approach to addressing global poverty through conditional basic income. The program primarily targets single mothers with at least one child under 18 who are living in poverty, recognizing this demographic as among the world’s most distressed populations.

The project currently serves thousands of mothers across four strategically selected markets, including Cambodia’s outskirts of Phnom Penh region, remote villages in Koshi River of Nepal, outskirts of Juba in South Sudan, and the Bidibidi Refugee Camp in Uganda. As Chief Operating Officer Steve Cho explains, many of these single mothers represent the most distressed populations globally, with extremely low rates of formal identification or any form of documentation.

The fundamental obstacle facing the EinStrong Foundation was one that traditional identity verification solutions simply couldn’t address: how to create a reliable, secure system for registering and authenticating individuals who possess no formal identification documents whatsoever.

The World Bank estimates that approximately 10% of the global population lacks formal identification, but EinStrong’s target demographic showed even higher rates of undocumentation. This meant that conventional identity verification approaches, which rely on government-issued documents or established credit histories, were completely inadequate for the foundation’s mission.

The scope of this issue became clear through the foundation’s research and field experience. Many beneficiaries in the Bidibidi refugee camp had fled South Sudan, leaving behind any documentation they might have possessed. In Cambodia, the foundation encountered mothers who grew up as orphans or in communities where formal record-keeping was nonexistent. Some individuals had never possessed any form of official documentation throughout their entire lives.

This situation created a complex technical and operational challenge. The foundation needed to create a system that could uniquely identify each person across a global database of potentially billions of individuals, prevent fraud and duplicate registrations, and provide ongoing authentication for financial transactions, all without relying on traditional forms of identification.

Given the unique challenges of their operating environment, the EinStrong Foundation developed a comprehensive set of requirements for their biometric authentication partner. The solution needed to work reliably across the broadest possible range of smartphone hardware, from high-end iPhones to lower-end Android devices commonly used in developing regions.

Performance requirements were equally demanding. The system needed to:

• Provide exceptional accuracy to prevent false matches across a global database
• Maintain processing speeds fast enough to support real-time transactions in challenging network environments
• Provide sophisticated liveness detection capabilities to prevent fraud attempts using photos or videos

Perhaps most importantly, the foundation needed a partner that could provide comprehensive support and demonstrate genuine commitment to its humanitarian mission. This wasn’t just about technical capabilities, but about finding a vendor willing to invest in the success of a nonprofit organization serving some of the world’s most marginalized populations.

After evaluating multiple vendors, the EinStrong Foundation selected authID based on three critical differentiators.

• authID’s technology demonstrated superior smartphone compatibility, working effectively across the widest range of devices in the foundation’s target markets.
• The platform’s performance metrics were exceptional, with 700-millisecond processing speeds, one-in-one-billion false match rate accuracy, and advanced liveness detection capabilities.
• authID’s team showed genuine engagement with the foundation’s mission and provided the level of support necessary for success in challenging environments.

 

The integration of authID’s technology into EinStrong’s proprietary ESi app proved smooth and efficient. The foundation’s development team was able to complete the integration within a matter of weeks. This rapid implementation was facilitated by authID’s comprehensive documentation, example code, and best practices, which clearly demonstrated the platform’s maturity and the vendor’s experience with similar integrations.

EinStrong implemented multiple components of authID’s solution suite to achieve:

• User registration and onboarding, capturing and validating biometric data to create unique digital identities.
• Managing ongoing authentication for transactions and account access.
• Liveness detection capabilities ensure that each biometric scan represents a live person, preventing fraud attempts using photos or videos.
• Adjudication tools allow for human review in cases where the automated system requires additional verification.

The foundation’s approach to deployment was methodical and strategic. Rather than immediately migrating all users to authID, they initially launched with both authID and another biometric partner to conduct A/B testing and compare performance. This approach soon showcased authID’s superior performance in their specific operating environments before committing to full migration.

The migration process itself demonstrated authID’s technical sophistication and customer support capabilities. The foundation was able to successfully transfer existing biometric data from previous systems to authID’s platform, ensuring continuity of service for beneficiaries who had already been registered. This backend migration capability was crucial for maintaining the foundation’s operations while transitioning to a more capable platform.

The partnership between the EinStrong Foundation and authID has delivered impressive operational results across multiple dimensions. From a technical perspective, the system has successfully supported thousands offamilies across four countries, handling high transaction volumes with consistent reliability. Each family makes at least one biometric transaction weekly, creating a substantial testing environment for the platform’s capabilities.

The system’s performance has been particularly impressive given the diverse hardware environment in which it operates. Beneficiaries use a wide range of smartphone models, from newer devices to older, lower-specification handsets common in developing regions. authID’s technology has maintained consistent performance across this diverse hardware base, ensuring that technical limitations don’t prevent access to the program.

One of the most significant operational benefits has been the system’s ability to prevent fraud and duplicate registrations. In environments where traditional identity verification is impossible, the biometric system provides the security necessary to ensure that benefits reach their intended recipients. The platform’s sophisticated matching algorithms can detect potential duplicates across the entire global database, preventing individuals from registering multiple times across different markets.

The foundation has also benefited from authID’s proactive customer support approach. When EinStrong encountered a rare case of false duplicate detection between two different mothers in the South Sudan/Uganda region, authID’s team immediately engaged to investigate the issue. This collaborative approach included deep-dive analysis, joint problem-solving calls, and ongoing work to improve the system’s accuracy for the specific populations served by the foundation.

What has distinguished authID from other vendors in EinStrong’s experience extends far beyond technical capabilities. The quality of the partnership itself has been a crucial factor in the program’s success. authID’s executive team has been personally involved in supporting the foundation’s mission, demonstrating genuine commitment to the humanitarian goals of the project.

For the EinStrong Foundation, the vendor’s willingness to invest significant time and resources in ensuring the foundation’s success reflects a values-driven approach that aligns with the humanitarian mission of the ESi Mom project. EinStrong is excited to expand this to all users globally with the ESi Climate project.

The ongoing support relationship has been characterized by proactive communication, rapid response to issues, and continuous collaboration on improving the system’s performance. When challenges arise, authID’s team joins collaborative calls to review problems together and develop solutions.

The EinStrong Foundation’s partnership with authID demonstrates how advanced biometric identity solutions can address the world’s most challenging authentication problems. This collaboration proves that:

1. Technology can serve the underserved: Advanced biometric solutions can work effectively for populations without traditional identity documentation
2. Partnership matters: Beyond technical capabilities, vendor commitment and support are crucial for complex global implementations
3. Scalable impact is possible: Biometric identity solutions can scale to serve vulnerable populations while maintaining security and accuracy
4. Innovation drives inclusion: Cutting-edge technology like authID’s PrivacyKey™ and 700ms processing enables financial inclusion for the world’s most marginalized communities

The EinStrong Foundation’s partnership with authID represents far more than a successful technology implementation—it exemplifies the transformative potential of innovation driven by genuine humanitarian purpose. As EinStrong prepares to scale their operations to tens of thousands of beneficiaries, their partnership with authID stands as a powerful testament to how commercial success and social impact exist together. The result is not just better business outcomes, but a more inclusive digital future for all.