Government of India Uses NEC Biometric Identification System in 1.3-Billion-Person National Identification System

In 2010, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) launched the Aadhaar Program, a national identification system that aims to provide all residents of India with a unique identity and a digital platform to authenticate anytime, anywhere.

As India continues on the path of high economic growth and accelerated development of physical and social infrastructure, this national identification system is aimed at gathering and managing the names, addresses and biometric information of the entire population, in an effort to create a society in which every single person can enjoy equal access to education, healthcare, social welfare, banking, and other public and financial services.

The Aadhaar Program is essential for the inclusive nation building of India and empowerment of all its citizens.

Once a person registers for the system, he or she receives an individual 12-digit identification number or “Aadhaar.”

With over 1.3 billion enrollments completed, the Aadhaar Program is one of the largest national identification systems in the world.

As with any identification system, it must be robust enough to prevent duplicate registrations, and to stop people from impersonating others and committing fraud.

This is essential for maintaining the integrity of the system and the trust of the people in it. Furthermore, with so many citizens to register, the registration procedure needs to be as simple, accurate and efficient as possible.

This is where NEC is making a valuable contribution.

Central to the Aadhaar Program is an unprecedented, large-scale biometrics system developed by NEC.

The system utilizes multiple biometrics such as fingerprints, face images and iris images to distinguish more than 1.3 billion Indian citizens.

It also has tremendous processing power, with the capacity to handle more than 1 million registrations per day by checking the registered biometric information for more than 1 billion people and comparing it to the biometric information of people seeking to register.

“It is important to make sure that the same person is not registered twice in order to maintain a highly reliable national identification system,” said Noritaka Taguma, Senior Vice President, NEC Corporation.

“NEC’s biometrics identification system helps to stop people from pretending to be others, and helps people to register for the national ID program with greater accuracy and efficiency.”

NEC has proven itself to be a leader in the field of biometric identification, with its fingerprint, face and iris identification technologies ranking first in the benchmark tests conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a research organization affiliated with the U.S. Department of Commerce that advances measurement science, standards and technology.

For the Aadhaar Program, NEC has specially adjusted its identification algorithms to enhance the identification accuracy of its biometric system even further.

Through its contribution to the Aadhaar Program and other initiatives, NEC strongly supports the building of societies where people around the world can enjoy equal treatment and live in prosperity.

Original Article via NEC