UIDAI – IIT Bombay to Develop Touchless Biometric Capture System

In News

  • Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has joined hands with IIT-Bombay to develop a robust touchless biometric capture system.
  • The touchless biometric capture system, once developed and operational, will allow fingerprint authentication from home alike face authentication. 
  • Biometrics is the measurement and statistical analysis of people’s unique physical characteristics.

About UIDAI

  • It is a statutory authority established under the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (“Aadhaar Act 2016”) in 2016 under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
  • UIDAI was created to issue Unique Identification numbers (UID), named as “Aadhaar”, to all residents of India. 
  • It is responsible for Aadhaar enrolment and authentication, including operation and management of all stages of Aadhaar life cycle, developing the policy, procedure, and system for issuing Aadhaar numbers to individuals and performing authentication and the security of identity information and authentication records of individuals.

Significance

  • The new system is expected to capture multiple fingerprints at one go and aid authentication success rate further and will be an addition to the existing facilities available in the Aadhaar ecosystem.
  • The system will use an intelligent combination of signal/image processing and machine learning/deep learning with a common mobile phone available to most citizens with a good user experience. This will be a step forward in making Universal authenticator a reality.
  • The collaboration between UIDAI and IIT Bombay through its National Centre of Excellence in Technology for Internal Security (NCETIS) will lead to joint engagement in research and development (R&D) for development of a system for UIDAI. 

About NCETIS

  • The NCETIS is a joint initiative by IIT Bombay and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), under its flagship Digital India Programme. 
  • The NCETIS is aimed at developing indigenous technology solutions for Internal Security forces in broad areas of Electronic System Design and Manufacturing.

PIB