Digital Life Certificate: EPFO has simplified the rules related to pension. There are more than 78 lakh pensioners in the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), who are required to submit life certificate every year to continue receiving pension.
Earlier they had to go to banks to submit physical life certificate, 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 on the basis of biometric authentication.
For submitting biometric based DLC, the pensioner is required to visit any bank, post office, Common Service Centre or EPFO office branch as fingerprint/iris recognition machine is available there.
Face authentication technology made work easier
To reduce 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 proof of life certificate.
EPFO adopted this technology in July, 2022. This started a completely new process of submission of DLC by pensioners from their homes and made the process easy and affordable for them. With this, the elderly can complete the process using any Android based smartphone and avoid the hassle of going to the bank, post office etc. in old age.
In this method, the pensioner can be identified by facial scan using a smartphone camera at their home. This authentication is done from 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, reflecting 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 are about 10% of the total DLCs received during the year. In total, 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, one needs to install two applications i.e. Aadhaar Face RD and Jeevan Pramaan on their smartphone. Operator authentication for these applications is done through mobile numbers linked with Aadhaar. Detailed guidelines 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, making the process convenient to complete 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 pensioners not only in the regional offices but also during the ‘Nidhi Apke Nikat’ program being organized 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.
