The Unique Identification Authority of India, the Aadhaar-issuing authority, has decided to enable face recognition as another means of authentication from July 1, 2018.

The decision comes at a time when problems arising due to mismatch of biometrics are being reported about, including those faced by senior citizens with fading fingerprints.

However, the face authentication option will be allowed only in fusion mode, along with another authentication option such as biometrics or one-time password (OTP) on the registered mobile number.

The UIDAI has already captured the face photo during enrollment. "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," UIDAI said.

“To facilitate this authentication service, UIDAI will work with biometric device providers to integrate face modality into the certified registered devices and also may provide standalone Registered Device (RD) service as required by the ecosystem,” a media statement from the authority said.

While UIDAI plans to release necessary details for implementation of the new feature on March 1, it will be available in production by July 1.

According to UIDAI, more than 1,510 crore authentications have been performed as on date, out of which more than 1,045 crore are biometric authentications.