Biometric and facial authentication improve efficiency but risk exclusion. Analyse with reference to pension and welfare delivery in India.

Aadhaar-based biometric and facial authentication is the base of Direct Benefit Transfer and of Jeevan Pramaan, the digital life certificate system for pensioners. It turns identity checks into a quick digital step. For a pensioner who depends on a monthly payment, though, every failed check can mean losing that income. These tools work well only when there are backup routes for people the technology fails.

Efficiency gains

• Scale: DLC Campaign 4.0 (2025) generated about 1.91 crore digital life certificates. Over 1.16 crore (~60%) of them came through face authentication on a smartphone [1].
• Device-free mode: face-authenticated certificates rose from 72,338 (2021) to about 3 lakh (2022) [2]. This mode needs no fingerprint scanner.
• Doorstep delivery: postal staff generate certificates at home using biometrics or the Face RD App for ₹70 [3].
• Less leakage: CAG found ineligible beneficiaries drawing NSAP pensions because beneficiaries were not properly verified or authenticated [4]. Strong authentication helps remove them.

Exclusion risks

• Technology failure: in Telangana's Aasara pensions, fingerprint detection failed for 9% of beneficiaries [5]. Worn fingers from age or manual labour are a common cause.
• Digital divide: face authentication assumes a smartphone and digital literacy. The poorest elderly often have neither.
• Weak data: 32% of NSAP records were not Aadhaar-seeded, and 11 States/UTs used Aadhaar without consent [4]. Both go against the consent limits set in Puttaswamy (2018).
• Misuse in assisted channels: CAG found money withdrawn after beneficiaries died, using the postmaster's or bill collector's biometrics [5]. A biometric shows who used the scanner, not that the beneficiary was alive or present.
• Visibility gap: official releases count certificates generated, not failures or pensions stopped [1].

Bringing it together

Authentication → efficiency ↑, leakage ↓
        ↓ fails
No backup route → exclusion

The outcome depends on what happens when authentication fails.

• Keep other routes open. Face authentication is not mandatory [2].
• Link pension records to death registration under the RBD (Amendment) Act, 2023.
• Log every assisted authentication and publish failure data.

Biometrics make pension delivery faster and cleaner, but they become exclusionary when they are the only option. A rights-based design would make authentication one of several routes, built on consent and backed by a working grievance system. That keeps the efficiency gains while respecting the Article 21 right to dignity and SDG 1.3 (social protection for all).