New Delhi: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has asked biometric device manufactures to complete integration of face authentication with registered devices by 10 July.

The move is aimed at ensuring that certified registered biometric devices needed to facilitate face authentication are available with the banks and other financial institutions before 1 August, the date of implementation of face authentication.

Facial recognition was to be made available on registered devices from 1 July but the deadline was extended by a month as UIDAI needed more time to prepare for the rollout.

“Following the security principle that all biometrics will be captured only through a registered device (RD) service, all biometric vendors shall develop RD service to capture face image, ensure liveness check and create digitally signed and encrypted authentication input to allow Authentication User Agency (AUA) client application to use that option whenever required by the AUA application," said UIDAI in its circular dated 19 June, which was made public on Tuesday.

UIDAI has introduced two categories of AUAs—an entity engaged in providing Aadhaar-enabled services. The categories are local AUA, which is the limited know-your-customer (KYC) category, and global AUA, which will have access to e-KYC using the Aadhaar number.

An AUA may be a government, public or a private legal agency registered in India that uses Aadhaar authentication services provided by UIDAI.

All banks, including commercial banks, payment banks, regional banks, rural banks, cooperative banks and small finance banks, as well as life insurance companies and the National Payments Corp. of India, have been categorized as global AUAs. Prepaid payment instruments, non-bank financial institutions, telecom operators and non-life insurance companies are among those classified as local AUAs.

According to the UIDAI circular, facial recognition as an additional means of Aadhaar authentication is to be used only in combination with existing options of biometric authentication such as fingerprint or iris scan.

“Since face photo is already available in UIDAI database there is no need to capture any new reference data and camera is pervasively available on laptops and mobiles, making the face capture feasible for AUAs without requiring additional hardware," said the circular.

In January, UIDAI decided to introduce face authentication aimed at improving inclusion, particularly in ensuring that genuine beneficiaries are not denied benefits under various welfare programmes as their biometrics (fingerprints) no longer match with what is recorded on the central database of UIDAI. This aims to benefit a large chunk of the more than 1.21 billion Aadhaar number holders in the country.

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