New Delhi: In a bid to tighten the noose on imposters and tackle cheating, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) will be implementing a pilot face authentication mechanism for candidates this month.
The commission, with help from the National e-Governance Division (NeGD), has designed a mobile application which would verify the photograph of a candidate clicked at the examination centre with the photograph on their application forms and a QR code, printed on the admit card, will be scanned, UPSC chairman Ajay Kumar told ThePrint.
The verification will be done on a trial basis at five centres for the upcoming National Defence Academy and Naval Academy Examination on 14 September. The staff at examination centres, however, needs to be trained for the process. If the pilot is successful, the app-based authentication system will be replicated for all exams held by the commission, he added.
While the UPSC was earlier considering roping in private vendors for photo verification, doing so would have cost the commission Rs 30 crore. The application designed by NeGD has been free of cost.
The measure comes in the wake of reports of cases being registered against candidates for impersonation and cyber fraud. The UPSC and even state public service commissions often receive multiple complaints where the photograph of the person on the admit card and the person appearing for the exam are different.
93% candidates comply with Aadhaar-based authentication
Last year, in a first, the commission had decided to use Aadhaar-based authentication to verify candidates’ identity on a voluntary basis, both at the time of registration and during various stages of examinations and recruitment.
The move came in the backdrop of the cancellation of probationary IAS officer Puja Khedkar’s provisional candidature for fraudulently availing attempts in the civil services examination beyond eligibility.
Approximately 93 percent of the candidates who have registered with the UPSC have given their Aadhaar details, Kumar said. The commission, in fact, did an SMS-based survey of the estimated 1 lakh registered candidates who did not give their Aadhaar details, and got responses from 80 percent of them within 24 hours, Ajay Kumar added.
“Several reasons were cited, such as not receiving OTP from Aadhaar, or mismatches between the name in the matriculation certificate and in Aadhaar, since in some states the certificate lists the family name first and the given name later,” the chairman said.
(Edited by Shashank Kishan)
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