India’s National Health Authority has commenced a pilot of facial recognition software as a means of identifying people as they queue in the nation's COVID-19 vaccine centres.
The reason for using facial biometrics is simple: fingerprints or eyeball scans require touching equipment and getting close to machinery, both risky activities during the pandemic. A touchless and more sanitary facial recognition system therefore makes sense.
The system uses facial scans captured under India's Aadhaar national ID scheme.
National Health Authority CEO R.S. Sharma told Indian online newspaper, ThePrint:
The program will expand across the country once the pilot has between 50,000 and 60,000 facial authentications completed, according to Sharma, who praised Aadhaar because citizens whose faces were scanned in 2011 can now use facial recognition.
