Aadhaar Face Recognition for Authentication postponed to August

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has said that it has postponed face recognition facility for authentication by one month to August 1 so that smooth functionality has been ensured.

CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey of UIDAI
has said to PTI as " We are working on that. From August 1, we should be able to do it. All this is technology, and while we target a date this is not something as if we are buying things off-the-shelf. These things are being developed...," Pandey said. The UIDAI wants to be fully prepared, he said adding, "We are trying out best to have this released from August 1"

UIDAI had said that face authentication would be allowed "only in fusion mode" meaning along with either fingerprint or iris or OTP (one-time password) to verify the details of Aadhaar holder.

Ajay Bhushan Pandey told " From August 1, it will be available to user agencies. We will then watch how it performs in the field ... If more tuning or adjustment is required, we will do that and in the next few months this whole process should get stabilised. We will then make it applicable across all our users. It is a step in new direction. It is something unprecedented ... Even if we want to do it as early as possible, it is difficult to specify definite timeframe"

He added " Even if it takes a few more months, it is not as if people are being denied benefits in its absence. As long as we have an exception handling mechanism, it will ensure that anyone with fingerprint authentication difficulty or failure will be provided alternate means and given the benefits...,"