Monday, July 19, 2010

Biometric Problem for the UID!

Guess what's the biggest problem facing Nandan Nilekani's UID project? No, it's not logistics or database sizing, or integration. It's the absence of adequate quality biometrics in the vast rural population of India, the exact data set which is expected and targetted to benefit most from this project. What exactly do I mean by lack of adequate quality biometrics? Well, most of the farm workers and daily wage labourers do not have high-quality fingerprints! And the rest do not have adequately transparent corneas (because of cataracts), making retina scans impossible.

At the end of the day, these are the two key identification mechanisms for getting your UID.

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