CBSE to Introduce Biometric Authentication in Exams: Report
According to a recent report, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will introduce biometric authentication process to curb impersonation and malpractices in its exams. The board is said to have issued bids for the plan on Saturday. The decision will encompass nearly 1,500 exam centres across the country and approximately 17 lakh students who pursue education in this national level board.
As reported by the News18, CBSE will enable services like digital Fingerprint capturing, photo capturing, or face matching with scanned photos for authentication of candidates. The board currently conducts multiple examinations across the nation in both offline and online methods – either using pen and paper or CBT (Computer Based Test) style. “Biometric Authentication services… during Examination and post-examination are to be provided in approximately 1,200 to 1,500 examination centres per exam across the country”, News18 quoted the bid document.
Biometric authentication is a type of security process that verifies and confirms a user’s/candidate’s identity using biological traits. The traits could be fingerprints, voices, retinas, facial features, or irises. The system will store these information in a database and compare it with the real-time data acquired when a user tries to access it. Access will be granted only if the data’s come in match.
“CBSE is keen to implement biometric authentication and attendance marking system to make the examination process robust by implementing Digital Fingerprint capturing and Face matching (including photo capturing) of candidates by verifying Candidate’s identity on a real-time basis to monitor various activities of candidates at the examination centres across the country”, reads the statement.
The project is estimated to cost about Rs 5 crore and will cover approximately 1,200 to 1,500 centres and at least 17 lakhs students. For the purpose, CBSE will provide centre-wise data of candidates/ students including roll numbers, photos, name, exam date/shift and so on to the selected agency. The agency will then use this data for fingerprint/photo capturing and face matching and will enable strong mechanism for candidate verification during and subsequent stages of the process.
