India’s prisons to require Aadhaar authentication from inmates and visitors

In India, all prisoners and visitors will now have to go through authentication using their Aadhaar digital IDs as a part of a government initiative to strengthen inmate security and safety, according to the Press Trust of India.

The Union Home Ministry announced that the National Informatics Centre’s (NIC) ePrisons team has developed a procedure of operations for the Aadhaar authentication of inmates and visitors through the ePrisons platform for the security and safety of inmates.

Prison authorities must adhere to guidelines on the use of Aadhaar authentication set forth by the central government of India.

The Union Home Ministry was authorized to authenticate inmates and visitors earlier in the year. The ministry granted permission for prison departments to conduct Aadhaar authentication for inmates and visitors on March 6th and September 29th, respectively.

ePrisons is registered as a sub-authentication user agency for processing Aadhaar authentication of inmates. In the past, the national government saw scrutiny for providing contradictory information on how facial recognition technology would be used in prisons and criminal justice more broadly.

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  identity verification  |  India  |  prisons