The Indian government has soft launched an Aadhaar -enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) for central government departments and public sector enterprises. It has suggested that increasingly, the Aadhaar number will be used as the single form of ID to log attendance.
Till now some 11,000 government entities have started using the AEBAS data base, involving just over 27 lakh IDs -- but this is just 10 % of the target. The challenge has been to find a robust and convenient solution. Early adopters have most used a laptop or PC at the employee-facing end -- not ideal for identifying large numbers in a short time.
Leading Vadodara-based manufacturer of physical Security and Telecom solutions, Matrix Security Solutions, has unveiled a solution for Aadhaar-fueled point-of-entry systems that lays claim to being the only integrated and embedded system for this application, running on Open Source Linux.
Currently being showcased to stakeholders around the country, the Matrix COSEC VEGA FAXQ Aadhaar enabled biometric device is a single unit just 9 cms by 18.6 cms by 3.8 cms and weighing about 1/2 kg that can be mounted at entry points. It allows the employee to enter his or her Aadhaar number on a keyboard or swipe a "Mifare" Smart Card embedded with the number and then present a finger for scanning.
The entered data is sent via Internet, to the AEBAS server at the back end which in turn connects to the Aadhaar data base at the Universal Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to authenticate the number. The entire Internet round trip takes just 1.5 seconds. and the result is displayed on a 3.5 inch LCD screen
COSEC VEGA FAXQ is the first embedded Linux based Aadhaar -enabled Biometric Device registered on the government's AEBAS Server. At a demo session in Bengaluru earlier this week, Matrix Product Manager Jatin Desai explained that the system supports both Hindi and English with auto selectable mode. Typical system costs range from around Rs 23,000 to Rs 26,000, depending on whether the employer opts for a manual Aadhaar number entry mode or provides a swipeable smart card with the number built in.
Early adopters of the system include DRDO, SAIL, Airports Authority of India and Indian Oil. Among states, Andhra Pradesh has been the first to adopt the Matrix system.
