Aadhaar has surpassed a billion enrolments, giving Iris ID cause for celebration.
Aadhaar is, of course, India’s national biometric registry of citizens, organized by India’s Unique Identification Authority (UIDAI). The program is linked to a range of government services including healthcare administration and the dispersal of social subsidies, and it continues to grow in importance as it finds new applications such as facilitating digital payments.
Iris ID has been involved in the program from the beginning, having initially advised the UIDAI on biometric authentication back in 2010, and proceeded to offer biometric technology for Aadhaar. Its iris scanning technology has proven particularly important in enrolling the many citizens whose jobs in manual labor have rendered their fingerprints difficult to scan; indeed, in a statement announcing the billion-registrants milestone, Iris ID cited a UIDAI official as stating that the technology has helped authorities to avoid “catastrophic failure” with respect to citizen enrollment, and has helped to make that process a “roaring success”.
And as Aadhaar continues to become more prominent and important in Indian society, it could help to show other governments around the world how such programs – and the kind of biometric technology offered by Iris ID – can be used to improve governance and civil society in their countries too.
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May 2, 2016 – by Alex Perala
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