World’s biggest biometric ID scheme forges ahead

India to complete identity number database by 2014

The world’s largest biometric identity exercise, which is taking place in India, is well on its way to reaching its target of half the country’s population, reports the BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder.

Jahangirpuri is one of the biggest slums in the Indian capital, Delhi, home mostly to rubbish pickers and daily wage labourers.
Today many of them are lined up outside a tiny, single-room office, waiting patiently.
As each one of them goes inside, two young men and women enter their details into a computer before they are photographed and their fingerprints and iris are scanned.
‘Every nook and corner’ It’s a process that’s being repeated at similar centres around India.
For the past two years, the Indian government has been creating the world’s largest and most sophisticated database of personal identities. It’s part of an ambitious project to hand over a unique identification number (UID) to each of the country’s 1.2bn people.