UIDAI Unveils Face Authentication SDK and Sandbox to Simplify Digital Onboarding

At the Global Fintech Fest 2026, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) introduced two new tools designed to streamline Aadhaar-based face authentication for businesses and users alike. The Aadhaar Face Authentication SDK and the Aadhaar Face Authentication Sandbox were launched on Wednesday to help ecosystem partners integrate, test, and deploy face authentication more smoothly within their digital platforms.

The SDK brings UIDAI's face authentication capability directly into native Android and iOS applications. This means users no longer need to switch between apps to complete authentication. Earlier, a background application called FaceRD was required for a similar experience, which lengthened the onboarding process. With the SDK, a user can authenticate from within a single app—such as a banking, insurance, or broking application—making the journey shorter and more convenient.

The SDK is ready to use and incorporates AI/ML-based liveness detection and anti-spoofing features. It also ensures secure handling and encryption of authentication data and is compatible with a wide range of consumer smartphones. This is expected to help government departments, banks, fintechs, and other organisations deploy face-authentication-enabled services more efficiently.

Alongside the SDK, UIDAI launched the Aadhaar Face Authentication Sandbox—a secure, controlled environment where organisations can integrate, test, and validate the entire face authentication journey before going live. The sandbox allows developers and quality assurance teams to test key stages such as user provisioning, consent, face capture, liveness checks, authentication, error handling, and response validation, without needing external biometric hardware. It also supports testing of failure scenarios like invalid digital signatures, network interruptions, timeouts, and spoofing attempts.

This launch fulfills a long-standing demand from the fintech and banking ecosystem to build a seamless and secure user onboarding experience from within their own mobile applications. UIDAI's indigenously developed AI/ML-driven face authentication solution, first launched in 2021, has already processed over 500 crore transactions and been adopted by nearly 200 entities, including central and state government bodies, banks, NBFCs, telecom operators, brokerage firms, and certifying authorities. The technology received the Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Public Administration 2023 under the Innovation category.

Face authentication is widely used for services such as submission of Digital Life Certificates (Jeevan Pramaan) by pensioners, Ayushman Bharat beneficiary onboarding, DBT schemes, Aadhaar-enabled payments, SIM activation through e-KYC, and beneficiary authentication for schemes like PM e-Drive, PM Awas Yojana, and PM Kisan.

UIDAI also released a 'Playbook on ease of Onboarding' to guide BFSI entities in getting onboarded into the UIDAI authentication ecosystem for verifying customers, staff, and business partners.