India has pushed Aadhaar digital ID abroad as welfare enhancing and AI-ready in use of facial technology. Back home, pensioners have no real option but to consent: not giving facial data means no pension. https://thewire.in/rights/no-match-rajasthans-push-for-facial-authentication-on-pensioners-leaves-many-behind
Community activists say that when facial features and other biometrics change, the most vulnerable – elderly and those with disabilities who belong to marginalised castes – face obstructions in updating and correcting their data, and get cut off from essential social services for long, even years, in the time it takes for them to get data rectified.
“The reality is the poorest who are deserving and eligible have to struggle for very long to go through the updating and correction processes, and they are deprived of their benefits,” said Ranjit Singh, an activist with Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a union that struggled to bring a right to information law in Rajasthan in 2005.
06/01/2026