The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) under the Ministry of Electronics and IT has successfully rolled out a new security mechanism for Aadhaar-based fingerprint authentication and faster detection of spoofing attempts.

The artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI and ML) based security mechanism developed in-house is now using a combination of both finger minutia and finger image to check the liveness of the finger print captured.

This is making Aadhaar authentication transactions even more robust and secure, official sources said.

The new two factor or layer authentication is adding add-on checks to validate the genuineness (liveness) of the fingerprint so as to further cut down the chances of spoofing attempts.

The move will be of immense use in segments including banking and financials, telecom and government sectors. It shall also benefit bottom of the pyramid as it will further strengthen the Aadhaar enabled payment system and curb malicious attempts by unscrupulous elements, sources added.

The new security mechanism for Aadhaar-based fingerprint authentication has now become fully functional. The roll out and migration happened after months of discussion and hand holding by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) of its partners and user agencies.

A constant engagement and due diligence of UIDAI with authentication user agencies (AUAs) were carried out to impress upon AUAs and sub AUAs about the benefit of the new modalities, an official statement said.

AUA is an entity engaged in providing Aadhaar enabled services to Aadhaar number holders using the authentication as facilitated by the authentication service agency.

Sub AUAs are agencies that use Aadhaar authentication to enable its services through an existing requesting entity.

With the new system in place, only finger image or only finger minutiae based Aadhaar authentication has given way to the robust two factor authentication.

By the end of December 2022, cumulative number of Aadhaar authentication transactions had crossed 88.29 billion and clocking an average per day transactions of 70 million.