The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), in collaboration with the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT Hyderabad), recognized the winners of its Biometric SDK Benchmarking Challenges for face and iris modalities on June 15, 2026. This initiative builds upon the success of UIDAI's previous fingerprint challenge and was conducted between December 2025 and February 2026, receiving a total of 531 registrations.
The challenges aimed to identify high-performing 1:1 face and iris matching solutions from leading technology providers and research institutions, both from India and internationally, as part of UIDAI's ongoing effort to develop indigenous Biometric SDK solutions and advance biometric research. The assessments were conducted using large, anonymized datasets under controlled execution environments, with a unique feature being the use of long-term biometric datasets of children aged 5 to 10 years with a 5-year gap for each sample to test how well verification systems work across growing age.
In the Face Challenge, Innovatrics of Slovakia secured first position, followed by IDBio from the US, and Neurotechnology of Lithuania. In the Iris Challenge, IDBio secured first position, followed by Neurotechnology and Innovatrics. The competition also witnessed participation from several Indian companies and academic institutions including Perfios, Ooru, and IIIT Hyderabad. This challenge represents a unique global initiative where such datasets were used to solve real-world problems related to biometric identity of children across age variance.