Aadhaar For SIM Cards: UIDAI to Roll-out Face Recognition From September 15
Non-compliance with the UIDAI's instruction will bear a financial disincentive on the service providers, said the circular issued by the nodal Aadhar body.
New Delhi, Aug 18: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the nodal agency for Aadhaar, said it would roll-out the face recognition feature as part of eKYC from September 15.
After the feature is implemented, the telecom service providers will have to verify the face of their client with the database managed by Aadhaar, before issuing the SIM cards. The additional recognition mechanism will be in addition to the fingerprint and iris recognition, which are currently part of the eKYC process.
The feature was expected to be rolled out from July 1. Due to non-readiness of some telecom service providers, it was pushed to August 1, and subsequently delayed up till September 15.
Non-compliance with the UIDAI's instruction will bear a financial disincentive on the service providers, said the circular issued by the Aadhar body.
“TSPs are hereby directed that with effect from September 15, 2018 at least 10 per cent of their total monthly authentication transactions shall be performed using face authentication in this manner. Any shortfall in transactions using face authentication would be charged at Rs 0.20 per transaction,” state the UIDAI circular.
UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey, while speaking to news agency PTI, clarified that the instructions will apply only in cases where the Aadhaar is for the eKYC process. "If SIM is issued through other means without Aadhaar, then these instructions will not apply," he said.
In a bid to shun critics, Pandey claimed that the face recognition mechanism will make eKYC through Aadhaar more inclusive, rather than complicated. Pointing out the cases in which the fingerprint do not match -- in cases where Aadhaar card-beared is an intensive labourer -- the face recognition will complete his or her eKYC process.
In other words, the UIDAI chief said that face recognition alone would be suffice for the issuance of SIM cards, adding that fingerprint and iris recognition will not be additionally required.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 18, 2018 08:21 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).