Pakistan Rolls Out At-Home Facial Recognition for Pensioner Proof-of-Life Checks

Pakistan’s pensioners can soon confirm they are alive and eligible for payments using facial recognition from home, sparing them trips to the bank. Federal Minister for Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb told the National Assembly that the government has introduced a digital system that lets elderly pensioners verify their identity remotely through face matching, presenting it as part of a broader push to digitize public services.

The change targets a long-standing pain point in pension administration. Proof-of-life checks require pensioners to periodically prove they are still living before payments continue, a process that has typically meant in-person visits and biometric checks at a bank or government office. Aurangzeb said the new system allows that verification to be completed from home, which he framed as part of wider efforts to use digitalization and artificial intelligence to streamline services and reduce discretionary handling.

The move builds on Pakistan’s national identity infrastructure. The pensioner proof-of-life system is run with the National Database and Registration Authority through an app-based check, and facial recognition was added because fingerprints can become harder to read with age, a recurring obstacle for elderly citizens whose prints have worn down. Letting pensioners pass a face-based liveness check on a phone is intended to keep payments flowing without forcing repeated office visits, with the rollout spanning well over a million federal and provincial pensioners.

The approach extends a pattern of using face biometrics as a more accessible fallback across Pakistan’s welfare and identity programs, as seen when the country’s BISP social-protection program expanded its registration van fleet and facial recognition fallback for people who struggle with fingerprint capture.

Aurangzeb made the announcement during a budget address to parliament.

Sources: Business Recorder, The Nation

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By the ID Tech Editorial Team