Encounter Aadhaar authentication failure? No worries, UIDAI now adds your face

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) said on Monday that it would allow using facial recognition as an additional means of Aadhaar authentication.

The move will allow easy authentication for those individuals, who face a difficulty in other biometric authentication due to worn out fingerprint and iris.

There have been many cases of authentication failures, because of incorrectly captured fingerprints or a change in biometric details because of old age. People being left out of the ambit of welfare schemes because flaws in the process have been widely reported.

"Face Authentication will provide additional choice to create inclusive authentication for residents having difficulty with their fingerprints/iris authentication," said UIDAI in an official release. Face authentication with liveness detection can be used as an additional factor to increase security, it added.

Current serving CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey took to Twitter to disseminate the development.

@UIDAI introduces yet another landmark technology for authentication - Face Authentication. #AadhaarFaceAuth will help all elderly or others facing issues with fingerprint authentication. Service to be launched by 1 July 2018.

— CEO UIDAI (@ceo_uidai) January 15, 2018

However, this is being allowed only in a fusion mode. The facility will also be allowed on a need basis. It will be available by July 1.

Earlier, to address privacy concern, which hogged national headlines after the Tribune reported data breach, UIDAI introduced 16-digit Virtual ID. The report revealed the easy access to Aadhaar details such as name, address, postal code (PIN), photo, phone number and email.

From June 1, it will be compulsory for all agencies, which undertake authentication, to accept the virtual IDs from their users.

"Aadhaar number holder can use Virtual ID in lieu of Aadhaar number whenever authentication or KYC services are performed. Authentication may be performed using the Virtual ID in a manner similar to using Aadhaar number," UIDAI circular said.

Since the first UIDAI created in September 2010, the organisation has issued 119 crore biometric identifiers.