Authored by Raja Srinivas Nandigam, Managing Director & CEO of RNIT AI Solutions Ltd
Facial recognition technology usually enters our lives quietly. We unlock our phones without a second thought, breeze through airport gates, and move on. These are small moments of convenience, designed to save time. What is less obvious is that the same technology is now being woven into the fabric of governance—reshaping how public services are delivered across one of the world’s largest democracies. As this technology evolves, it presents both extraordinary opportunities and serious responsibilities for those entrusted with serving citizens.
From Convenience to Governance: A Quiet Revolution
Public service delivery in India has long grappled with challenges that policy frameworks alone could not resolve. Manual verification, fragmented records, paper-based reporting, and insufficient audit trails made it difficult to monitor attendance in public institutions or ensure welfare benefits reached their intended recipients. At scale, these gaps created room for absenteeism, duplication, and resource leakages. The challenge was never one of intent but of visibility—the system simply lacked real-time insight into ground-level realities.
This is where applied AI, particularly facial recognition systems, has begun to make a meaningful difference. Not as a surveillance tool, but as a practical administrative capability that supports the dedicated efforts of government officials and public servants. The real power of AI is not in replacing people, but in empowering them—freeing them from repetitive manual processes so they can focus on creating value and serving society better. When teachers are relieved of attendance paperwork, they can invest that time in teaching. When welfare officers no longer chase duplicate records, they can concentrate on reaching genuine beneficiaries.
AI-Driven Insights Powering E-Governance
According to Market Research Future, the Indian facial recognition market is projected to grow from approximately USD 300 million in 2025 to USD 1.20 billion by 2035, reflecting strong confidence in the technology’s potential across both public and private sectors.
In government schools across several states, facial recognition is being deployed to record attendance. Students mark their presence through facial authentication, while teachers’ locations are verified through geo-tagged logs. Consider the example of Assam, where the state government has implemented this technology across 45,000 government schools to track the attendance of over 50 lakh students and two lakh teachers. According to official reports, the system has also helped the education department identify more than five lakh duplicate student enrolments, enabling annual savings of over ₹100 crore on student welfare schemes—savings that can now be redirected toward genuine beneficiaries and educational improvements.
The transformation is subtle yet significant. Rather than relying solely on self-reported data, education departments now have access to verifiable, time-stamped records. AI-driven insights are making e-governance more transparent, more efficient, and genuinely citizen-centric. Both state and central governments are increasingly recognising that data-driven decision-making enables more effective resource allocation, clearer performance metrics, and evidence-based policy adjustments.
A similar approach is transforming welfare delivery. In several southern states, facial recognition is now used at service delivery points to confirm beneficiary identity, tackling long-standing issues of benefit leakage and duplicate claims. The experience remains simple for the citizen, while the system becomes far more robust.
Responsible AI: The Future Norm
As AI becomes embedded in public administration, questions around data use, storage, consent, and oversight become central to public acceptance. Responsible AI is not merely a best practice—it should be the future norm. Every algorithm deployed in governance must respect citizen rights, ensure data protection, maintain human oversight, and prioritise public benefit over mere efficiency gains. Technology must serve people, not the other way around.
India’s evolving data protection framework is crucial to how these technologies are perceived. Facial recognition in governance cannot be treated as just another IT deployment. It requires transparent guidelines on purpose limitation, auditability, and accountability. Citizens deserve to know not only that a system works, but how decisions are made and what recourse exists if something goes wrong.
Encouragingly, this principle is gaining recognition. The Digital India Mission is evolving beyond platform deployment. Budgetary restructuring, focused investments in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, and greater attention to digital skilling all signal a shift toward institutional maturity. The conversation is progressively moving from “what can we build” to “how should this be governed”—a healthy evolution that reflects growing administrative sophistication.
The Path Ahead: Technology in Service of People
The coming decade will be defining for India’s digital governance story. The country has already demonstrated its capacity to build digital systems at population scale. The more nuanced task now is to integrate AI into governance while strengthening public confidence. From facial recognition ensuring accountability to conversational AI making services accessible, the thread connecting every innovation must be empowerment: empowering public servants to deliver better outcomes, and empowering citizens to access what is rightfully theirs.
The technology is ready. The frameworks are emerging. The path forward requires collective commitment to Responsible AI—ensuring that every technological advancement ultimately serves the goal of better governance and improved lives for all citizens. When we get this right, AI will not be remembered as the technology that replaced human effort, but as the force that amplified human purpose.