To work around people facing difficulty authenticating their biometrics, the Unique Identification Authority of India said today that it will enable face authentication in conjunction with an existing mode of authentication on registered devices by 1st July 2018.

"This facility is going to help in inclusive authentication of those who are not able to biometrically authenticate due to their worn out fingerprints, old age or hard work conditions," UIDAI said in a statement.

The UIDAI lets registered citizens authenticate themselves through the Aadhaar database using two modes of biometric authentication-fingerprint authentication and iris authentication. It also allows verification of Aadhaar through a one time password on the mAadhaar app. Several cases have been reported of people being unable to use either authentication means as a result of worn out fingerprints and iris, especially because of old age or hard labour.

The face authentication, however "shall be allowed only in fusion mode along with one more authentication factor combined with either fingerprint or iris or one-time password to be able to successfully authenticate an Aadhaar number holder. Face Authentication shall also be allowed on need basis," said UIDAI.

To facilitate this authentication service, UIDAI will work with biometric device providers to integrate face modality into the certified registered devices and may also provide standalone registered device (RD) service as required by the ecosystem. UIDAI will provide software development kits (SDKs)/Registered Device (RD) services in various operating systems which will have the ability to capture face image, check liveness, and create digitally signed and encrypted authentication input (PID block) as required.

The authentication user agencies will need to make necessary changes on the AUA server side to process the encrypted authentication input. The Registered Device (RD) Service Providers shall be required to integrate the UIDAI provided face capture SDK into their service and allow application to use that option whenever required by the AUA application.

"Since face photo is already available in UIDAI database there is no need to capture any new reference data at UIDAI CIDR. Camera is now pervasively available on laptops and mobiles making the face capture easily feasible for AUAs without needing any additional hardware. Face authentication with liveness detection can be used as an additional factor to increase security," said UIDAI.

UIDAI will extend necessary support for enabling face authentication and would release necessary details for implementation by 1st March 2018. Face authentication as an additional modality to be used in fusion mode along with fingerprint/iris/OTP will be available in production for AUAs to use by 1st July 2018.