look news india
Digital Life Certificate: EPFO has simplified the rules related to pension. The Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has more than 78 lakh pensioners who are required to submit life certificate every year to continue receiving pension. Earlier they had to go to banks to submit physical life certificates, which caused many problems. EPFO adopted Digital Life Certificate (DLC) in 2015 to make the life of its pensioners easier. EPFO accepts DLC from EPS pensioners based on biometric authentication.
For submitting biometric based DLC the pensioner has to visit any bank, post office, Common Service Centre or EPFO office branch as fingerprint/iris recognition machine is available there.
Face recognition technology makes work easier
In order to mitigate the difficulties faced by senior citizens in physically visiting banks/post offices etc., MeitY and UDAI have developed Face Authentication Technology (FAT), under which face recognition technology can be used for Jeevan Pramaan Patra.
EPFO adopted this technology in July, 2022. This started a completely new process of submission of DLC by pensioners from their home itself and made the process easy and affordable for them. This allows the elderly to complete the process using any Android based smartphone and avoid the hassle of visiting banks, post offices etc. in old age.
This method allows the pensioner to be identified by facial scan using the smartphone camera at their home. This authentication is done from the UIDAI's Aadhaar database using the UIDAI Face Recognition App.
200% growth year-on-year
Since its introduction in EPFO, facial authentication technology based DLCs have been submitted by 2.1 lakh pensioners in 2022-23, which increased to 6.6 lakh in 2023-24, showing a 200% year-on-year increase in the use of this technology. It is also worth mentioning that 6.6 lakh FAT based DLCs in 2023-24 is about 10% of the total DLCs received during the year. Overall, about 60 lakh DLCs were received from pensioners during the last financial year.
You need to install 2 apps on your phone
To use the facial recognition method, you must have two applications installed on your smartphone i.e. Aadhaar Face RD and 'Jeevan Pramaan'. Operator authentication for these applications is done through mobile numbers linked with Aadhaar. Detailed instructions are provided in the apps to ensure successful face scan. After the scan is complete, the DLC submission is confirmed on the mobile screen along with the Jeevan Pramaan ID and PPO number, allowing you to complete the process from the comfort of your home.
The use of this innovative and convenient technology for DLC of EPS pensioners was added to the EPFO software in July, 2022. To ensure that the new method becomes popular among more and more pensioners, detailed instructions were issued to all regional offices. This process is regularly explained to the pensioners not only in the regional offices but also during the 'Nidhi Aapke Paas' programme being organised in all districts across India from January, 2023. A detailed video on the use of this technology is available on the official YouTube handle of EPFO @SOCIALEPFO. EPFO is confident that the convenience of this method will make the lives of more and more pensioners easier.
