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Govt To Drive Adoption Of Iris Technology

An Aadhaar based identification initiative of the government is increasingly changing the security system infrastructure. According to the India Biometrics Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2020 report, the biometrics market in India is projected to grow at a robust CAGR of over 35 percent till 2020. Government, BFSI, Border security, Manufacturing and Telecom are some of the industry domain that are fueling the growth of the Biometrics Market. While fingerprint based identification is largely relevant in this space, the Iris technology is rapidly gaining momentum across the verticals.

Biomatiques Identification Solutions is the first Indian company to tap the market potentials in this space. The company recently received the Standardization, Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) from Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) and working very closely with the government authorities on the technology deployment. 

In a candid interaction with CXO Today, Tamaal Roy – CEO, Biomatiques Identification Solutions Pvt Ltd talks about the scope of the newly introduced technology in India and the factors that drives the large scale adoption of the technology. 

Iris technology is fairly a new concept in India. Can you highlight unique features of this technology? 

Broadly speaking, complex and random Iris biometric pattern of a human is available and accessible without-contact for identity verification in any age group, in any working condition and weather condition. And that makes it the major differentiator in given set of other biometric technology where frequent failure and performance issues still persist.  Iris recognition is an automated method of biometric identification that uses mathematical pattern-recognition techniques on images of one or both of the irises of an individual’s eyes, whose complex random patterns are unique, stable, and can be seen from some distance.

Which are the growth drivers of the  the biometrics identification market in India? 

Growth in the Biometrics market is anticipated on account of increasing use of Iris and Fingerprint biometric products in the government space for beneficiary authentication to curb the misuse of the benefits and BFSI sector across the country. Incremental adoption and use in corporate houses, schools and industries for identity and access management coupled with rising demand from IT / ITeS to authenticate access to confidential information are other factors that are expected to propel market growth over the next five years. 

How do you see the adoption of iris technology in India so far? Which are the verticals that have embraced this technology? 

Application wise, this technology has generated tremendous demand from the domain such as Government, BFSI, Telecom, Automobiles, Health Care & Medical, Airport and Border Security, Manufacturing Industries. As far as large scale adoption of Iris technology in India is concerned, GoI has adopted Iris technology in the UID program and become the largest biometric data holder in the world. After UID program, States are the next major vertical to adopt Iris technology on large scale for beneficiary authentication in various welfare schemes and BFSI vertical is also in the line of adoption for eKYC. 

What is a scope of iris technology in e-Governance? What scope do you see in this space? 

Iris recognition as an authentication method has a wide range of applications in government’s Public Distribution System (PDS), Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Pension and MNREGA schemes which could be used for identifying individuals. The technology has already been implemented in 12 districts of Andhra Pradesh where we have also earned the largest order in India for 33,310 Iris Authentication scanners for beneficiary authentication.

Biomatiques Identification Solutions has introduced iris recognition technology at the cost of finger print technology.  Is the move intends to bring disruption in the market on a price front?

There are certain factors because of which iris technology has not been able to create a demand in the biometric market. What is interesting is the fact that foreign companies are not ready to lower the price of their iris scanning products as they are also into other forms of biometrics like fingerprint technology. If they lower the price for iris technology, it will render their finger print scanners useless. And that is where the problem lies. Iris technology in India is not so popular because of the price factor. No doubt this technology is far superior compared to other forms of biometrics, but price has always been a constraint. Security solutions of the highest standards should not be a matter of luxury. Instead it should be treated as a necessity and should be made available for everyone at an economical price.

What are the growth and expansion plans of Biomatiques Identification Solutions in India in 2017?

We are persistently involved in focusing the growth plan considering the existing market of beneficiary authentication for the delivery of government’s welfare schemes using Aadhaar enabled services. We are getting associated with system integrator for enabling the most accurate iris biometric based identification solutions  for eKYC and  identity mapping in the Government  market as well as BFSI, Telecom and Education sector. 

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