Indus OS and Delta ID, on Monday announced that they have been laying the groundwork for the first-ever Aadhaar-authenticated OS, which uses IRIS-biometric technology for the most secure identification and authentication modality, and supports 12 Indian languages. They have expedited efforts to launch it this quarter and empower the 1 billion plus Indians who are enrolled for Aadhaar. The companies expect Indians to use their Aadhaar for identification and authentication of various services such as Govt. subsidies and payment wallets.

“One of our focus areas in 2017 is to build features and innovations to support Govt. initiatives, especially Aadhaar-enabled services. We look forward to our partnership with Delta ID, the market leaders in IRIS based authentication technology, and expect to release the first Aadhaar-authenticated OS this quarter. This OS will be released across our smartphone brand partners and we foresee 100 million users to be using the Aadhaar-authenticated OS by 2020,” said Rakesh Deshmukh, Co-founder and CEO of Indus OS.

“Our partnership with Indus OS is a step towards strengthening the existing smartphone ecosystem with a secure and convenient biometric technology. We hope the combination of sophisticated iris scanning technology provided by Delta ID, with the consumer insights of Indus OS, the innovative and intuitive Made-in-India operating system, can enable faster adoption of Aadhaar-based services,” said Salil Prabhakar, President and CEO of Delta ID.

“This is our first partnership with an operating system. Indus OS has created successes with other Govt. bodies, and together we are best positioned to take this technology to the masses,” added Salil Prabhakar.

Among the range of citizen services announced by the government, Aadhaar has a massive reach of 1 billion in the country. Given that smartphone adoption is rapidly growing and with India being one of the largest markets in the world, the roll out of first-ever Aadhaar-authenticated OS will help drive mass adoption of Government to citizen services and initiatives. Indus OS has already partnered with 6 domestic smartphone brands including Micromax, Intex, Karbonn, Celkon and Swipe; and all of them are set to benefit with the launch of the Aadhaar authenticated OS. Indus OS is committed to work on the Digital India mission of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and this Aadhaar authenticated OS will pave the way for deeper integration of Government initiatives such as Aadhar Pay, Digilocker and UPI. The OS will also have the ability to secure financial transactions via the IRIS technology, thereby pushing the adoption of digitally enabled financial services. Indus OS expects over 100 million users of the Aadhaar authenticated OS in the next 3 years.

How will it work?

The unique software plus hardware combination captures the IRIS-ID-information through a dedicated iris scanning camera built into the smartphone.
• The OS first encodes this information and then encrypts it with UID’s public key
• This encrypted information is sent to the UIDAI server for a match
• UIDAI server responds with a token ‘Yes’ or ‘No’
• If the token is ‘Yes’, the consumer is authorized to utilize Aadhaar ID for a whole suit of activities

Key aspects:

Safer technology: For the 1 billion people, who are concerned about security, a smartphone with the first-ever Aadhaar-authenticated OS, and its robust and safe architecture with IRIS recognition technology powered by Delta ID makes any cause of concern insignificant. As the access to Aadhaar authentication is directly integrated at the level of the operating system, it negates any security risk.

Simplified process: With the facility being integrated at the operating system level itself, it negates multiple and complex layers for consumers. They would no longer have to undertake unnecessary steps for access to digital services, as Aadhaar identification and authentication will be available in a single step. Additionally, as it will support 12 regional languages the product also enables ease of access for the 90% of Indian population that does not consider English to be 1st, 2nd or 3rd language

Cost effective: Aadhaar identification and authentication through cost-effective IRIS  scanning hardware by Delta ID, built into Indus OS gives smartphone manufacturers a distinct software-hardware combination.

Benefits to manufacturers: With the government pushing for higher adoption of Aadhaar related services in the country, and on creating the roadmap for Digital India, this innovation will give smartphone manufacturers an extra edge, and also act as a means to showcase their support towards government led initiatives.