Aadhaar-based face authentication transactions for service delivery are gaining robust momentum with monthly transactions in May touching an all-time high of 10.6 million, since its launch in October 2021, the government said today.

This is the second consecutive month to register more than 10 million face authentication transactions. The number of face authentication transactions is on an upward trajectory and the monthly numbers clocked in May is an increase of 38 per cent, compared with such transactions reported in January 2023, indicative of its growing usage.

The AI/ML-based face authentication solution developed in-house by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), is now being used by 47 entities, including state government departments, ministries in the central government, and some banks.

Among many usages, it’s being used for registering beneficiaries under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana; for authentication of beneficiaries in the PM Kisan scheme and for generating digital life certificates at home by pensioners. It’s being used for marking staff attendance at several government departments and for opening bank accounts at a few leading banks via their business correspondents.

Among several states, the government of Andhra Pradesh is using Aadhaar-based face authentication for Jagananna Vidya Deevena Scheme for fee reimbursement to eligible higher education students and under the EBC Nestham scheme for welfare delivery to women from economically backward segments.

Face authentication provides features like ease of usage and faster authentication and it is preferred as an additional modality to strengthen the authentication success rate along with fingerprint and OTP authentications. It captures live images for authentication. It is safe against any video replay attacks and static photo authentication attempts by anti-social elements.

Face authentication is also working as a robust alternative and helping senior citizens and all those who have issues with the quality of their fingerprints due to several reasons including manual work or health issues.

The month of May also saw the UIDAI executing 14.86 million Aadhaar updates following requests from residents. Aadhaar e-KYC service continues to play a key role in the banking and non-banking financial services sectors by providing transparent & improved customer experience and helping in ease of doing business. More than 254 million e-KYC transactions were carried out in May alone.

By the end of May 2023, the cumulative number of Aadhaar e-KYC transactions has gone past 15.2 billion. Continued adoption of e-KYC is significantly reducing customer acquisition costs of entities like financial institutions, and telecom service providers among others.