UID snippets

With an ambitious task of registering one billion people, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has decided to have details of the face, both iris images and all ten fingerprints as necessary requirement for issuing unique numbers to residents of India. With “enroll once and get an identity for life” task, UID authority aims to check fraud or impersonation by collecting multiple identification details of a person on a biometric system. The decision was taken after a committee constituted by UIDAI under chairmanship of B K Gairola, DG, NIC, suggested parameters for biometric details based on prevailing standards. In its report to UIDAI, the committee recommended standards for face, fingerprint (including the minutiae formats) and iris image. “UIDAI, after taking all relevant factors into consideration, has decided that three biometric attributes of residents — face, all ten fingerprints and both iris images — will be collected during the enrolment process into UID system,” an official statement said. UID authority, which has maintained that providing a unique identity number to every Indian resident was the “first stage” in the creation of a Citizenship Registry, had called for enactment of privacy laws to ensure security of data.