India Piloting Facial Recognition For COVID-19 Vaccinations

The Indian government is piloting a Aadhaar-based facial recognition system for COVID-19 vaccinations, RS Sharma, chief executive officer of the National Health Authority told The Print. The pilot is being carried out in Jharkhand, which is reporting over 1,000 successful authentications via facial recognition on a daily basis at the vaccination sites, he said.

Sharma said that Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has deployed “the best facial recognition algorithms which we will be utilising now”.. The move will make the vaccination process “touchless”, he said. Individuals are currently authenticating their biometrics, either using their fingers or iris. Separately, Sharma said that Co-WIN can handle millions of registrations, and can bear loads of 10,000 users per second. It has already generated 3 million digital certificates for COVID-19 immunisation.

UIDAI’s facial recognition algorithms will soon be rolled out at all vaccination centres. A pilot was launched in Jharkhand, there we have been conducting more than 1,000 authentications via facial recognition on a daily basis, says @rssharma3

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— National Health Authority (NHA) (@AyushmanNHA) April 6, 2021

It’s worth noting that Sharma is the chairperson of the empowered committee for administration of the COVID-19 vaccine; he has also served as UIDAI chief, apart from heading the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for two consecutive terms. Read Full Article >