UIDAI rolls out new security mechanism for faster detection of spoofing attempts

New Delhi: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) under the Ministry of Electronics and IT has successfully rolled out a new security mechanism for Aadhaar-based fingerprint authentication and faster detection of spoofing attempts.

The artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI and ML) based security mechanism developed in-house is now using a combination of both finger minutia and finger image to check the liveness of the fingerprint captured.

This is making Aadhaar authentication transactions even more robust and secure, official sources said.

The new two-factor or layer authentication is adding add-on checks to validate the genuineness (liveness) of the fingerprint so as to further cut down the chances of spoofing attempts.

The move will be of immense use in segments including banking and financials, telecom and government sectors. It shall also benefit the bottom of the pyramid as it will further strengthen the Aadhaar-enabled payment system and curb malicious attempts by unscrupulous elements, sources added.

The new security mechanism for Aadhaar-based fingerprint authentication has now become fully functional. The rollout and migration happened after months of discussion and hand-holding by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) of its partners and user agencies.

A constant engagement and due diligence of UIDAI with authentication user agencies (AUAs) were carried out to impress upon AUAs and sub-AUAs the benefit of the new modalities, an official statement said.

AUA is an entity engaged in providing Aadhaar-enabled services to Aadhaar number holders using authentication as facilitated by the authentication service agency.

Sub-AUAs are agencies that use Aadhaar authentication to enable their services through an existing requesting entity.

With the new system in place, only finger image or only finger minutiae-based Aadhaar authentication has given way to robust two-factor authentication.

By the end of December 2022, the cumulative number of Aadhaar authentication transactions had crossed 88.29 billion and clocking an average per day transactions of 70 million.