The Indian government’s Digital India initiative is one of the factors that is helping demand for biometric technology in the country, according to Safran Identity and Security. In a recent interview with a&s Asia, Ravishankar Mysore, Senior Program Manager at the company gave his perspective on this as he explaine
The Indian government's Digital India initiative is one of the factors that is helping demand for biometric technology in the country, according to Safran Identity and Security.
In a recent interview with a&s Asia, Ravishankar Mysore, Senior Program Manager at the company gave his perspective on this as he explained that the Digital India project is helping the government's national ID project known as Aadhaar program.
"[The initiative has achieved] one billion+ Aadhaar digital identities," said Mysore. "The program has reached a critical mass with 93 percent of adult population enrolled and this is driving wide spread usage and adoption of biometrics among Indian household."
The national ID project is expected to help demand in the private sector as well. This is especially the case in sectors like banking.
"The advantages of biometrics are also driving adoption in financial sector which is mainly driven by regulations by the Reserve Bank of India [India's central bank]," said Mysore. "Current market demand in this sector is focused on know-your-customer (KYC) norms, two factor authentication, biometric based payment technologies such as Unified Payment Interface (UPI), etc. As the consumerization of biometrics accelerates, we are also seeing biometrics being put to use in innovative projects such as facial recognition system for tracking missing/found children, etc."
But the market is not without challenges. To Mysore, usability, in particular, is a major concern in a large country like India and efforts are underway to make biometric acquisition and usage more user-friendly and secure. Also, biometrics for infants & juveniles is another hurdle that needs to be addressed.
"For instance, Safran Identity & Security, along with a group of smartphone vendors are working with Indian government to bring iris authentication to masses through iris on smartphone which is expected to kick-start the large scale adoption of iris biometrics in India," said Mysore.
Apart from banking, Mysore identified other verticals that are seeing demand in the country. "We are seeing momentum in the central and state governments in managing biometric records of crimes and being a world leader in AFIS [Automated Fingerprint Identification System], Safran is poised to bring its world class solutions to India," said Mysore. "Border control using biometrics is another area of interest where Safran Identity & Security's products and solutions are being explored by Indian ministries and agencies for securing borders while enabling convenience to travelers. Biometric technology is user friendly and can be even not intrusive at all."