UIDAI earning over $1M per month for Aadhaar biometric authentication and eKYC

Aadhaar authentication and eKYC services have generated Rs 270 million (nearly US$3.8 million) for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) from March through May of this year, MediaNama reports.

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad revealed the revenues while providing a monthly breakdown in the Lok Sabha. Prasad declined to provide a list of micro-ATM providers using the eKYC service, noting that they are appointed by banks, and therefore under the jurisdiction of the Reserve Bank of India and the Department of Financial Services. He also did not provide a list requested by the legislature of private companies that resolved to continue using Aadhaar authentication after the Supreme Court ruled it could only be used for government services, saying the information is not available to him.

The number of eKYC transactions performed with Aadhaar peaked at 426 million in July 2017, and has ranged from a low of 38 million in April to a high of more than 100 million in January, which was nearly matched in August. The Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) is capable of handling tens of millions of authentications daily, according to MediaNama.

Aadhaar coverage has reached 95 percent of the population of India, but challenges to inclusion in the identity scheme, and therefore in social services, remain for others. Syntizen is reported to be in talks with multiple state governments about providing its Aadhaar number redaction technology to boost the privacy protections of eKYC and other processes.

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  authentication  |  biometrics  |  India  |  KYC