India’s Election Commission is pitching new legislation that would link a citizen’s voter ID card with their Aadhaar number. The legislation would amend the 1951 Representation of the People Act, and allow the Election Commission to collect the Aadhaar numbers of existing voters and new applicants seeking to have their names added to the register.…
A new nation-wide biometric identification program in Kenya was suspended by the country’s high court until new laws are enacted that protect the data collected and prevent discrimination against minorities. In a 500-page report to be released this week, the court’s three-judge panel announced that it is suspending the biometric ID program until the government…
FindBiometrics is celebrating its 17th annual Year in Review, so throughout January on ID Talk we will be interviewing biometrics and identity industry leaders about the major milestones not just of the year, but also the previous decade. In this latest episode, FindBiometrics Vice President of Digital Content Susan Stover sat down with Mohammed Murad,…
The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh will be receiving a substantial number of fingerprint readers from NEXT Biometrics. Andhra Pradesh plans to use NEXT’s Aadhaar-certified readers to facilitate the distribution of government services and improve the living standards for people in rural areas as part of the state’s Navarathnalu program. The full order is worth…
A recent article in the South China Morning Post has placed a spotlight on the rapidly expanding agritech industry in India, where there are now more than 450 startups trying to come up with ways to make the country’s farms more efficient. Agriculture currently represents about 18 percent of India’s annual GDP, yet its farmers…
“Aadhaar is the world’s most ambitious civil biometric identity program. Indian citizens are assigned an Aadhaar number connected to biometric registration including fingerprint, iris, and face biometrics…” Government officials from Afghanistan are exploring the development of a national ID program similar to India’s biometric Aadhaar system, suggest recent collaborative efforts conducted between the two countries.…
Mastercard has announced a partnership with Federal Bank that will see its Mastercard Identity Check (MIC) platform become available for its customers throughout India. The EMV 3-D Secure MIC platform allows for biometric identification, giving card-holders the added security of two-factor authentication, which Mastercard says decreases instances of online shopping cart abandonment and reduces cases…
NEC Technologies India — a subsidiary of Japanese tech giant NEC Corporation — has been awarded a contract from the Airports Authority of India to supply biometric technology at four airports around the country for the Digi Yatra project. The biometric tech will be launched by NEC in phases before the end of 2020 at…
Department officials from Kochi in the Ernakulam district of India have reported that the coverage of migrant workers in the area with biometric identification cards has reached 80%. A department official speaking to The Times of India said, “We have provided biometric ID cards to 1,04,000 migrant workers in Ernakulam bringing 80% of them under…
A multi-city teahouse chain in India is coming under fire for its use of facial recognition to identify customers. Ostensibly, the face scanning technology is used only in Chaayos’ loyalty program, enabling the teahouse chain to link enrolled customers’ payment accounts to their faces. But one unhappy customer – and editor of what the BBC…
Indian privacy advocates are once again voicing their concerns as the government of India prepares to hand out a landmark contract for a national facial recognition surveillance system. The Prime Minister opened the bidding for the contract back in September, for a system that is supposed to help an understaffed police force identify criminals and…
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has announced plans to move toward the implementation of biometric transit cards, making them the first transit provider in India to do so. The system as proposed will be designed with the aim of making the ticketing process faster, reducing the number of people travelling without proper tickets, and…
Biometrics News – Time and Attendance The ongoing internet shutdown in Kashmir has limited the effectiveness of biometric attendance tracking programs for government and call center employees in the region. India cut off the area’s access to the internet on August 5th, isolating the region in the midst of a legislative battle in which India…
The biometrics industry spans across a wide range of technologies and sectors, and this week’s roundup of FindBiometrics’ top news stories runs the gamut. First up is news about an extra-early round of funding for India-based digital identity startup Syntizen Technologies. The company didn’t disclose how much money it brought in through the funding round,…
The digital identity startup Syntizen Technologies has completed a successful Pre-Series A funding round, receiving an undisclosed amount of money from Mastercard and ACPL, a biometric solutions provider. Syntizen is based in Hyderabad, India, and plans to use the funds to improve its products and fuel its domestic and global expansion. “Mastercard’s investment is…
India is moving forward with plans to set up a massive facial recognition surveillance scheme. The proposed system would centralize biometric data from multiple national databases, and would gather new data through a network of facial recognition cameras that would be set up throughout the country. Officials are hoping that the new system will help…
Aadhaar is rapidly eclipsing other forms of identity in India. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) took to Twitter to announce that Aadhaar cardholders no longer need any other documents when updating some of their personal information. Instead, Indian citizens can simply bring their Aadhaar card to any Aadhaar Seva Kendra center, where they…
“This is largely in relation to the WhatsApp messaging app owned by Facebook, through which information deemed to be a public threat can be promulgated.” Facebook wants India’s Supreme Court to decide whether it can be compelled to share users’ Aadhaar information with law enforcement authorities. The company is facing similar lawsuits in four different…
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is celebrating a major Aadhaar milestone after revealing that the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) has now been used for more than 200 million transactions. The AePS crossed the 200 million threshold sometime in the past month, with more than 66 million Indian citizens using the service in July…