UIDAI to introduce new Identity Method

New Delhi, Mar 26: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which is in-charge of the 12-digit identifier Aadhaar, in January had announced that it will introduce face authentication feature to help those who run into problems in biometric authentication due to old age, hard work or worn-out fingerprints.

The UIDAI is all set to make face authentication available alongside iris or fingerprint scan as means of verifying Aadhaar users from July 1, 2018.

It had said that face authentication will be allowed only in fusion mode meaning it would be permitted along with either fingerprint or iris or OTP to verify the details of Aadhaar holders.

In a presentation to the Supreme Court last week where he emphasized the robustness of the Aadhaar encryption system saying breaking it may take "more than the age of the universe for the fastest computer on earth", UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey also informed that the proposed face authentication feature will be introduced by July 1.

"Face authentication shall be available in fusion mode along with one more authentication factor like fingerprint/iris/OTP from July 1, 2018," he had said in the power point presentation titled '1 billion +'.

Aadhaar is being used for identity authentication across banks, telecom companies, public distribution system, income tax amongst others.

Even in his presentation, the UIDAI CEO has pointed out that 1,696.38 crore Aadhaar authentications and 464.85 crore eKYC transactions have been performed so far.