IndiaAI Launches ₹2.5 Crore Face Authentication Drive to Prevent Exam Fraud
New Delhi: In a push to harness artificial intelligence (AI) for public interest, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) today launched the IndiaAI Face Authentication Challenge — a national innovation contest with a ₹2.5 crore prize pool aimed at developing secure, scalable, and transparent identity verification systems for public examinations.
This new challenge, part of the IndiaAI Application Development Initiative (IADI), invites startups and technology companies to design AI-powered solutions for photo verification and de-duplication—crucial to preventing impersonation, multiple registrations, and fraudulent entries in recruitment and academic examinations.
The initiative has been announced by IndiaAI, an Independent Business Division (IBD) operating under the Digital India Corporation (DIC), which functions as the government’s nodal agency for implementing the IndiaAI Mission. The mission seeks to democratise AI’s benefits across society, strengthen India’s position as a global AI leader, and promote the ethical and responsible development of AI technologies.
Participants are required to build an end-to-end application capable of performing one-to-many facial matching against large historical applicant databases. Unlike traditional rule-based systems, these AI-driven tools must employ advanced facial recognition algorithms to automatically detect duplicate or false identities and ensure that each legitimate applicant is assigned a unique ID.
Officials said the objective is to “leverage AI to strengthen institutional integrity and safeguard the merit-based selection process.” A senior IndiaAI Mission official noted that this approach “goes beyond automation—it brings accountability and precision to systems that affect millions of students and job seekers every year.”
Under the programme, up to 10 shortlisted teams will each receive ₹5 lakh to refine and test their prototypes on a sample dataset. The two best-performing teams stand to win deployment contracts of up to ₹1 crore each, along with two-year support for real-world implementation. Applications will remain open until 25 October 2025, and detailed participation guidelines are available on the IndiaAI portal (indiaai.gov.in).
Officials said the technology developed through this challenge will have cross-sectoral potential. Beyond examinations, similar AI authentication systems could strengthen identity verification across government departments, social welfare schemes, and digital public infrastructure, enhancing transparency and reducing fraud.
The Face Authentication Challenge aligns closely with the government’s larger AI vision under the Digital India framework, which aims to promote inclusive, transparent, and citizen-centric digital governance. IndiaAI’s open innovation model seeks to connect government priorities with the capabilities of the country’s expanding startup and AI research ecosystem.
“Such collaborations will allow India to lead in building responsible AI systems that are secure, reliable, and rooted in our governance values,” said another MeitY official, adding that the initiative reflects India’s commitment to using technology for social good rather than surveillance or exclusion.
The challenge thus represents both a technological and ethical milestone — an attempt to blend innovation with fairness, where AI serves merit, not manipulates it, and ensures that the future of examinations and public selection remains transparent, trustworthy, and truly Indian in spirit.
– global bihari bureau
