IEEE Spectrum May, 2011 - 11

more online at spectrum.ieee.org

Fast Start for World's Biggest
Biometrics ID Project

in india, a few million people have been registered
so far-only a billion left to go

I

dentity is easy to take for
granted. Most of us have multiple
legal documents or ID cards that
prove we are who we say we are.
But for many of the world's poorest
citizens, the lack of legal identity
is a barrier to participating in
commerce and receiving services.
In India, an estimated
500 million people have no form
of reliable identification. It's a
problem the Indian government
has set out to fix through a
five‑year project with a budget
spectrum.ieee.org

of US $430 million for this year.
Starting six months ago with
rural populations, the government
has begun to create a biometric
database that will eventually
contain an unprecedented
hundreds of millions of records.
"We are talking about 10 times
more than anything else that
has been done before," says
Anil Jain, an IEEE Fellow and
distinguished professor at
Michigan State University, who
is an expert in biometrics.

From each volunteer partici‑
pant, the government collects
10 fingerprints, 2 iris images,
and a photo, and if the new data
don't match any identity already
enrolled, it assigns the person
a unique 12‑digit number. After
that, a single fingerprint or iris
scan should be all that's needed to
verify the identity of any person.
As of the end of March, the Unique
Identification Authority of India
(UIDAI) has registered more
than 4 million people this way.
The UIDAI hopes to eventually
collect biometrics from a majority
of the Indian population.
India has many federal and
state programs to help people liv‑
ing in poverty, but today it's nearly
impossible to be sure that funds
and benefits are actually being
delivered to those who need them.

Thumb drive:
a program
aiming to provide
biometric IDs
to all Indians
has begun with
a few million
rural residents.
this woman
from a village
near Bangalore
is having her
fingerprints and
irises scanned
and her photo
taken. When
the project is
complete, India
will have the
largest biometric
ID database
in the world.
photo: Jagadeesh NV/
epa/LaNdoV

may 2011 * IEEE SpEctrum * Na

11



http://spectrum.ieee.org http://spectrum.ieee.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum May, 2011

IEEE Spectrum May, 2011 - Cover1
IEEE Spectrum May, 2011 - Cover2
IEEE Spectrum May, 2011 - 1
IEEE Spectrum May, 2011 - 2
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IEEE Spectrum May, 2011 - 60
IEEE Spectrum May, 2011 - Cover3
IEEE Spectrum May, 2011 - Cover4
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