UPSC uses real-time face authentication in Civil Services prelims to curb impersonation

The Union Public Service Commission UPSC successfully implemented face authentication in the 2026 Civil Services preliminary examination an official statement issued on Thursday saidThe faceauthentication protocol ensures that the candidate whose photo was uploaded at the time of filling the application form matches when they appear with the admit card to write the exam it saidThe system enabled live realtime authentication of candidates at examination venues through mobilephonebased verification by invigilators ensuring seamless identification and eliminating the possibility of impersonation and malpractice said the statement issued by the UPSCUPSC conducted a realtime faceauthentication exercise across all 2072 examination venues nationwide during this years Civil Services Preliminary Examinations 2026 held on May 24 it saidOut of a total of 819732 candidates who had applied for the examination nearly 549 lakh candidates around 67 per cent appeared for it as per the provisional dataThe face authentication application has been developed and implemented by UPSC with technical support from the National eGovernance Division NeGD of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology MeitY UPSC has developed a business process which requires each candidate to undergo face authentication before they are allowed entry to the examination hall the statement saidUPSC has also devised a detailed Standard Operating Procedure SOP as part of this process which has been shared with all states districts and venues where the examination is proposed Multiple rounds of training were imparted to the invigilators The beauty of the solution lies in the fact that it does not require any expensive hardware It works on any Android smartphone and invigilators used their own mobile phones for the purpose thereby reducing hardware costs and easing the logistical burden it saidAnother significant feature of the application is its speed The time required for a typical face authentication of a candidate is only about 68 seconds which ensured smooth entry and prevented queuing at examination centres it saidThe applications scalability was such that it was used by more than 7000 invigilators simultaneously and during the peak entry period the application processed approximately 12000 authentications per minute the statement saidUPSC Chairman Ajay Kumar said this is a new step taken to ensure impersonationfree exams The technology is fully developed inhouse with the help of NeGD he said However the challenge also lay in deploying the solution at scale leveraging the existing invigilation workforce for face authentication training them and accomplishing all this within a short span of time UPSC NeGD and MeitY teams have done a great job in developing and implementing this solution successfully on such a large scale with nearly 55 lakhs candidates across 2000plus venues Kumar saidThe successful implementation of realtime face authentication is a significant step towards strengthening the integrity of the civil services examination process and reflects the Commissions continued commitment to transparency fairness and technological innovation in public examinations the statement addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever