Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi

New Delhi, Sep 13: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has launched a new Aadhaar Face Authentication Software Development Kit (SDK) and a dedicated sandbox, enabling banks, fintech companies, insurers and other financial-sector entities to integrate Aadhaar-based face authentication directly into their mobile applications.

The launch was announced at the Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai and is aimed at simplifying digital onboarding by allowing users to complete Aadhaar face authentication within the same application, without switching between multiple apps.

UIDAI has also unveiled a ‘Playbook on Ease of Onboarding’, which will guide banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) entities seeking to join the UIDAI authentication ecosystem for identity verification of customers, employees and other business partners.

What the new Aadhaar Face Authentication SDK offers

The Aadhaar Face Authentication SDK brings UIDAI’s face authentication capability directly into native Android and iOS applications.

A customer using a banking, insurance or broking app can therefore complete Aadhaar face authentication within that application instead of being redirected to a separate platform.

The ready-to-use SDK is designed to simplify integration for ecosystem partners. It incorporates artificial intelligence and machine-learning-based liveness detection and anti-spoofing capabilities, while supporting secure handling and encryption of authentication data.

The SDK is designed to operate across consumer smartphones and is expected to help government departments, banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), fintech firms and other organisations deploy Aadhaar Face Authentication-enabled services more efficiently.

Until now, a similar authentication journey required the FaceRD application to be installed on the user’s device. The FaceRD app operated in the background during authentication.

According to UIDAI, this created an additional step in the onboarding process and made the experience dependent on the availability of the FaceRD app.

The new SDK addresses a long-standing demand from the fintech and banking ecosystem for a seamless and secure onboarding process within an organisation’s own mobile application.

How the new authentication model works

UIDAI Chairman Neelkanth Mishra said the new SDK will allow partner banks and businesses to run Aadhaar authentication locally on their own servers rather than routing requests through UIDAI’s central systems.

“The problem with removing geofencing is, then you are vulnerable,” he said, as quoted by The Indian Express. “It’s critical infrastructure. And of course, we see hundreds of attacks every day. We have safeguards.”

Under the new model, authentication runs on the bank’s own server rather than UIDAI’s central infrastructure. The bank is therefore responsible for securing its local authentication process, while the exposure does not pass back to UIDAI’s systems.

Aadhaar Face Authentication Sandbox

Alongside the SDK, UIDAI has launched the Aadhaar Face Authentication Sandbox, a secure and controlled environment for organisations to integrate, test and validate the complete Face Authentication journey before moving to production.

The sandbox is designed for developers and quality assurance teams to test various stages of authentication, including user provisioning and consent, face capture, liveness checks, authentication, error handling and response validation.

Testing can be conducted without external biometric hardware.

Organisations can also simulate failure scenarios such as invalid digital signatures, network interruptions, timeouts and spoofing attempts. This allows developers to assess how their applications respond to different authentication and security failures before deployment in a live environment.

Who will benefit

The technology is designed to work across consumer smartphones and is expected to make it easier for government departments, banks, NBFCs, fintech companies and other organisations to deploy Aadhaar Face Authentication-enabled services.

The move is particularly significant for the banking and financial services sector, where digital customer onboarding and remote identity verification have become increasingly important.

UIDAI’s indigenously engineered AI/ML-driven Face Authentication solution was launched in 2021\. According to the authority, it has since been adopted by nearly 200 entities, including Union government ministries and departments, state governments, banks, NBFCs, telecom operators, brokerage firms and certifying authorities.

The technology received the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration 2023 under the Innovation category.

For users, the key change is a simpler onboarding process. Instead of downloading and switching between multiple applications, customers will be able to complete Aadhaar Face Authentication directly within the banking, insurance or broking application they are already using.