India AI Impact Summit 2026

aadhaar-ai-the-identity-paradox-hosted-by-uidai

2 min read

TRACK:Safe and Trusted AI
SPEAKERS
  • Sh.Barada Prasad Sabut, Head of Engineering, UIDAI
  • Sh.Sridhar Dhulipala, Principal Advisor- Design, UIDAI
  • Sh.Zach Ninan, Head of Innovation, UIDAI
SESSION OVERVIEW

This session is titled "Aadhaar & AI: The Identity Paradox." UIDAI shall cover how AI creates both opportunities and risks in digital identity. Highlighting Aadhaar's journey, its impact, and how UIDAI is using AI responsibly along with revealing new opportunities to collaborate. The session aims to cover key issues such as bias, privacy, deepfakes, fraud prevention, and ethical AI use. It will also showcase innovations such as Aadhaar's voice AI capabilities, face liveness detection, document scanning, and the new Aadhaar app.

VIDEO RECORDING

Aadhaar & AI : The Identity Paradox (Hosted by UIDAI)

Abstract

The session opened with a framing of the “identity paradox”: AI simultaneously expands the possibilities for secure, inclusive digital identity while creating new avenues for deception (deep‑fakes, synthetic biometrics) and privacy risk. UIDAI leaders walked through the technical, ethical, and operational challenges—​inclusivity, privacy, trust, scale and latency—and highlighted a series of AI‑driven solutions that have already been deployed at population scale (finger‑liveness, AI‑based deduplication, OCR, voice‑assistants). The talk continued with a focus on language‑based inclusion and cognitive‑load reduction, followed by a showcase of UIDAI’s open‑innovation programmes (Ideathon, sandbox, data‑portal, SITA scheme) and a live voice‑AI demonstration. The session closed with a multi‑speaker panel that debated emerging fraud trends, biometric‑renewability, open‑source ABIS, fairness‑by‑design, and the future of agent‑driven identity, ending with a call for industry collaboration.

Key Takeaways

  • Identity paradox: AI simultaneously expands secure digital identity and creates sophisticated deception (deep‑fakes, synthetic biometrics).
  • Inclusivity first: UIDAI leverages India’s demographic diversity to train unbiased models, yet acknowledges gaps (e.g., users unable to use face authentication).
  • Privacy guard‑rails: Data‑minimisation and privacy‑preserving AI (federated learning, secure enclaves) are mandatory; raw Aadhaar data never leaves the secure repository.
  • AI‑driven defences at scale: Finger‑liveness, AI‑based deduplication, OCR, and voice‑AI are already production‑ready and operate on hundreds of millions of daily transactions.
  • Voice‑AI demo: Out‑of‑band, AI‑generated phone calls can both flag fraudulent attempts and collect instant user feedback, demonstrating a new feedback loop for trust.
  • Language & cognitive load: Sovereign Indian language models and on‑device contextual speech aim to reduce barriers for non‑English speakers and low‑literacy populations.
  • Open‑innovation ecosystem: Ideathon, sandbox, anonymised data portal, and the SITA funding programme provide concrete pathways for external innovators to contribute.
  • Renewable biometrics: Transforming immutable biometric templates into revocable, encrypted tokens mitigates the risk of permanent data compromise.
  • Fraud trends: Deep‑fakes and insider mis‑use are the fastest‑growing threats; a multi‑engine AI fraud‑prevention stack is essential.
  • Delegated identity & post‑quantum security: Future agents will need cryptographically verifiable credentials; UIDAI is exploring lattice‑based signatures to protect against upcoming quantum attacks.
  • Collaboration call‑to‑action: UIDAI urges industry, academia, and startups to partner on next‑generation AI models, privacy‑enhancing technologies, and global ABIS diffusion.

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