UIDAI using AI extensively to detect fraud: Chairman Neelkanth Mishra

Mumbai: Aadhaar-issuing body the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is extensively deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect and counter fraud, as it seeks to outsmart fraudsters in what Chairman Neelkanth Mishra described as a "cat-and-mouse game".

"Fraudsters keep getting smarter but we are also getting smarter," Mishra said, addressing a session at the Global Fintech Fest 2026.

UIDAI is using AI extensively for fraud detection, he said.


"So, in fact, well before it became a buzzword, we had liveness tests on face and thumbprints. It is a 'cat and mouse' game. So basically fraudsters keep getting smarter, but we are also getting smarter," he said.

Highlighting the rapid increase in Aadhaar usage, he said daily authentications had risen "dramatically" from about seven crore when he first wrote his comments for UIDAI's annual report, to 10 crore now. UIDAI is preparing its infrastructure to handle 25-30 crore Aadhaar authentications a day, he pointed out.

"We are doing 10 crore authentications a day. I remember writing my first comments to the annual report, and it was (then) 7 crore. We are now at 10 crore and we are preparing to be 25-30 crore so this number is expanding very dramatically," he said.

Mishra noted that people need to establish their identity online for services ranging from banking to telecom, and added that more than 600 entities now use Aadhaar.

Asked about change or trend he anticipates over the next three years, Mishra said agentic use cases are likely to grow significantly over the next three years, with people potentially delegating authentication to AI agents, opening up applications that are difficult to even imagine today.

"Agentic use cases will pick up a lot. So instead of humans trying to authenticate, they may delegate to agents and we may find use cases that may be hard to imagine right now," he said.

The UIDAI on Wednesday also launched the Aadhaar Face Authentication SDK (Software Development Kit) and Aadhaar Face Authentication Sandbox at the Global Fintech Fest 2026, enabling ecosystem partners to integrate, test and deploy Aadhaar Face Authentication more seamlessly within their digital applications.

The Aadhaar Face Authentication SDK brings UIDAI's Face Authentication capability directly into native Android and iOS applications. It eliminates the need for users to switch between applications, enabling a smoother, single-app authentication experience.

"The ready-to-use SDK simplifies integration for ecosystem partners while incorporating AI/ML-based liveness and anti-spoofing capabilities. It also supports secure handling and encryption of authentication data and is designed to work across consumer smartphones," according to a UIDAI release.

The SDK is expected to help government departments, banks, fintechs and other organisations deploy Face Authentication-enabled services more efficiently.

Alongside the SDK, UIDAI also launched the Aadhaar Face Authentication Sandbox, a secure and controlled environment that allows organisations to integrate, test and validate the complete Face Authentication journey before production onboarding, the release added.

The Sandbox enables developers and quality assurance teams to test key stages, including user provisioning and consent, face capture, liveness checks, authentication, error handling, and response validation - without requiring external biometric hardware.

It also allows testing of failure scenarios such as invalid digital signatures, network interruptions, timeouts and spoofing attempts.

"The launch of the SDK and Sandbox fulfils a long-standing demand of the Fintech and banking ecosystem to build a seamless and secure user onboarding journey from within the user bank/fintech organisation's mobile application," the release added.