The integration of FRT with essential welfare schemes such as rationing has raised concerns among food rights activists and privacy experts.
Published Aug 13, 2025 | 1:13 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 20, 2025 | 9:49 PM
A group of women in Karnataka. (iStock)
Synopsis: The Integrated Child Development Services scheme in Karnataka mandates facial recognition at the time of registration of beneficiaries on the POSHAN tracker app. Subsequently, anganwadi workers have to conduct facial authentication on the app before each distribution. The integration was intended as a measure to reduce their workload. However, on the ground, workers are under continuous stress.
Gowramma Patil, an anganwadi worker from Gulbarga in Karnataka, held up an old smartphone to a group of similar workers at a meeting in Bengaluru in July.
She uploads data of beneficiaries of the Take Home Ration (THR) programme on the Poshan tracker app using that phone. It takes some time to switch on and freezes every time she tries to open the app. “I use this same phone for facial authentication of the beneficiaries. You can imagine how long it would take,” she said. Other anganwadi workers in the room nodded in agreement.
The integration of facial recognition technology with THR, under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme, was implemented in Karnataka after a directive by the Union Government on 30 May. The directive mandates the use of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) at the time of registration of beneficiaries on the POSHAN tracker app.
Subsequently, anganwadi workers have to conduct facial authentication on the app before each distribution.
While the government claims that the FRT would ensure that benefits reach only genuine beneficiaries, eliminating leakages and duplication, anganwadi workers across the state have reported multiple difficulties in implementing the system. In some cases, beneficiaries have left the centres in frustration, due to issues with facial authentication, without availing their ration.
“FRT would destroy the privacy and constitutional rights of the beneficiaries. Due to the FRT, around two lakh beneficiaries in the state are likely to be excluded from the ICDS programmes,” the Karnataka State Anganwadi Workers Union alleged during a public consultation meeting organised in July.
Parvathi, an anganwadi worker in JP Nagar in Bengaluru, told South First that she received a smartphone from the government for the THR programme.
“Whenever I try to open the app, the page takes at least 10 minutes to load. Sometimes it shows ‘error’, so I have to restart my phone. It is too time-consuming,” she said.
Parvathi has also found it hard to explain to beneficiaries the need to take their pictures and the requirement to authenticate every time a beneficiary comes around. “Pregnant and lactating mothers have been sceptical of it. They ask us why we are taking the pictures and what we plan to do with them. Once they see how long the process is taking, they just leave without taking the ration,” she said.
The process of collecting rations prior to the introduction of FRT would barely take five minutes. Beneficiaries would sign in a booklet maintained by the anganwadi workers and then take their rations. However, now, with this technology, workers claim the process often takes over 15-20 minutes.
During visits to several anganwadi centres, South First found that workers frequently reported issues with the facial authentication system for pregnant women. According to them, the technology often fails after the initial registration.
“The faces and bodies of pregnant and lactating mothers change frequently, so they no longer match the images captured during the registration. The app doesn’t account for these changes, and as a result, some mothers are forced to leave without receiving their rations,” HD Sunanda, Karnataka State General Secretary of the Anganwadi Workers Union, told South First.
She noted that family members of the pregnant woman used to collect the ration on their behalf, especially in cases of heavily pregnant women and mothers of newly born. With this technology, ration will be denied in the name of FRT, Sunanda said.
However, they noted that in cases of technology failures or when workers were unable to authenticate beneficiaries, the government issued notices to the anganwadi workers. According to Sunanda, they have already received over 400 such notices.
The integration of THR with facial recognition was intended as a measure to reduce their workload. However, on the ground, workers are under continuous stress.
“When one person’s facial authentication gets delayed, others who had been waiting also lose their patience. It puts a lot of pressure on us,” said another anganwadi worker at a centre in Banashankari.
She explained how her workload has only doubled now, even though officials had told her that technology would make the process easier. Not only does she have to endure the challenges that FRT comes with, but she also maintains physical registers of every beneficiary that walks in. “We don’t even get paid that much to take on such a heavy workload,” she said.
An anganwadi worker in Karnataka earns ₹11,000–13,000 as monthly remuneration. Early this year, hundreds of anganwadi workers protested at Freedom Park in Bengaluru, demanding that their monthly honorariums be hiked to ₹15,000. They also demanded a ₹2 lakh retirement benefit and medical aid for serious illnesses.
The protest was withdrawn after the Women and Child Development Department director assured that the demands would be addressed. However, the demands have remained unmet.
The FRS app also mandates OTP verification from the beneficiaries to register them on the app. The two-way authentication — FRS and OTP verification — is repeated every time the THR is supplied.
However, Sunanda pointed out that oftentimes, beneficiaries do not have a balance in their phone to receive OTP. In some cases, families only have one mobile phone that is connected to Aadhaar and can receive OTP. “The government did not think of these ground realities,” Sunanda claimed.
An anganwadi worker from Udupi, Shobha, said that several people in her village are scared to share any OTPs sent to them due to potential financial scams.
“Recently, in our anganwadi jurisdiction, one of the workers’ names was used to scam people and hack their bank accounts. Hence, people are growing suspicious about sharing OTPs,” she said during the consultation meeting.
The integration of FRT with essential welfare schemes such as rationing has raised concerns among food rights activists and privacy experts.
“We are hearing about the technical difficulties with this integration in urban areas. But it’s even worse in rural and remote areas, where connectivity is not stable and comes by very rarely,” said Subhankar Chakrabarty of Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samity, a people’s science movement that has also been opposing FRT in ration schemes along with the anganwadi union in Karnataka.
He explained that the increasing reliance on FRT is also observed in public schools in Karnataka. The Department of School Education and Literacy issued an order on 19 July, mandating the use of a mobile-based AI-driven facial recognition attendance system from this academic year.
In the context of both of these developments, Chakrabarty told South First, “Such technology, which is being portrayed as innovative, is only a commercial way of capturing personal data of people. It will only benefit the big tech companies,” he said.
The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has also criticised the Union government’s move. “The systems are struggling to reconcile differences in appearance between the photographs on record and people’s current faces, resulting in continuous authentication errors. All this is to ensure that a packet of raw food does not reach the wrong hands,” read a statement issued by the IFF.
The organisation also pointed out that the Poshan tracker app’s privacy policy is vague. While it records “considerable” amounts of personal information, including their name, mobile number, date of birth, gender, name of their children, Aadhar number, address and facial image, the policy doesn’t specify the duration for which the user’s data will be stored. “New technologies routinely result in exclusion of vulnerable groups due to gaps, errors and failures,” IFF warned in its statement.
Despite these anomalies and concerns, the Union government informed the Lok Sabha that it successfully completed face capturing for 75.12 percent of eligible beneficiaries registered for THR at anganwadi centres as of 5 August. “However, we can’t see any success on the ground,” said Sunanda.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
