This journal article highlights flaws in the use of biometrics for authentication and enrolment by UIDAI. The author presents a model that shows how the false positives and false negatives increase when the project is scaled up.
Abstract: The accuracy of biometric identification depends on the chance of a false positive: the probability that the identifiers of two persons will match. Individuals whose identifiers match might be termed duplicands. When very many people are to be identified success can be measured by the (low) proportion of duplicands. The Government of India is engaged upon biometrically identifying the entire population of India. An experiment performed at an early stage of the programme has allowed us to estimate the chance of a false positive: and from that to estimate the proportion of duplicands. For the current population of 1.2 billion the expected proportion of duplicands is 1/121, a ratio which is far too high.
Focus Areas: Aadhaar Platform
Geography: All India
Year: 2016
Author: Hans Verghese Mathews
Source: Economic & Political Weekly