NEXT Tech Certified for Aadhaar Use

“Looking to next steps, the company says it will begin selling its Scallop 3023-U fingerprint readers for Aadhaar projects later this year, and will sell 2023-U sensor modules designed for use in devices like POS terminals in the first half of 2019.”

NEXT Biometrics has received STQC certification for its fingerprint sensor technology, paving the way for deployments with Aadhaar, India’s wide-ranging biometric national ID program.

A department of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Directorate of Standardization Testing and Quality Certification is the government agency in charge of verifying the adequacy of biometric technologies used in Aadhaar, which revolves around a national database containing citizen ID numbers and associated biometric data including fingerprint, iris, and face biometrics. STQC certification is thus a big deal – in a statement announcing the development, NEXT Biometrics CEO Ritu Favre called it a “milestone” that has been reached “after a long and rigorous testing process.” Favre also asserted that opportunities associated with Aadhaar represent “an important part of NEXT’s business strategy”.

Looking to next steps, the company says it will begin selling its Scallop 3023-U fingerprint readers for Aadhaar projects later this year, and will sell 2023-U sensor modules designed for use in devices like POS terminals in the first half of 2019. Beyond that, NEXT says it plans an “encrypted, even more highly secure fingerprint reader” for launch in the second half of next year, as well as an encrypted version of its sensor module in the first half of 2020.

In spite of lingering legal issues over Aadhaar pertaining to citizen’s privacy rights and concerns about security, the program has expanded very widely and rapidly over the last few years. And it appears likely to expand further in the years to come, with India’s central government insisting that it is essential to a larger digitization and modernization program for the country.

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June 5, 2018 – by Alex Perala