India wants Apple, Google to embed Aadhaar authentication system on all smartphones

After making it mandatory for all new mobile phones to have GPS and a panic button, India now wants inclusion of its homegrown authentication on all smartphones running Android, iOS and other operating systems in the country.

The Indian government has held talks with major players including Google, Samsung and Microsoft for adding its biometric authentication system, Aadhaar (which means foundation in Hindi), to their respective mobile operating systems, Bloomberg reports.

If they decide to not add Aadhaar, which consists of fingerprint and iris-scan data of over one billion Indians, the government could limit their reach in the country. India is the world’s fastest growing smartphone market, and is also a home to over 300 million smartphone users. Read more...