India: EPFO makes UAN access easier with face recognition technology. By CIOTechOutlook Team

India: EPFO makes UAN access easier with face recognition technology.

CIOTechOutlook Team | Friday, 11 April 2025, 11:48 IST

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has introduced a new digital feature that seeks to transform the user experience for EPFO members. The service allows employees to generate and activate their Universal Account Number (UAN) using Aadhaar Face Authentication Technology (FAT) via the UMANG Mobile App. This secure, contactless service provides users with a completely digital, user-friendly experience for millions of EPFO members.

UAN generation was previously the responsibility of employers and was performed using employee data provided to EPFO. Although Aadhaar details were validated, employee data was often misrepresented in fields such as father’s name, mobile number, or date of birth. Thus, errors were produced that could not be resolved until claim processing or accessing other EPFO services. Due to the communication problems related to missing or incorrect mobile numbers, the employees of EPFO remained unaware of their UAN. To activate employees' UAN, they previously had to validate their UAN via the EPFO Member portal using an OTP generated by their Aadhaar, which could be quite confusing and time-consuming.

In the financial year 2024-25, of the 1.26 crore UANs generated, only 44.68 lakh UANs (35.30%) were activated by a member. EPFO had sent several reminders to the employers requesting that they assist employees with activating their UANs to ensure no inconvenience when the employees request benefits in the future. To overcome these challenges, EPFO has made it easier to generate and activate a UAN directly through the UMANG App using Face Authentication.

The process benefits employees as well as the employer because every UAN generated is done so with complete Aadhaar and Identity validation. Employees' information will be pre-populated from the Aadhaar database, and their mobile number will be verified against the number registered in Aadhaar, simplifying the entire process. UAN activation is completed on the EPFO portal at the same time as generating the UAN. Employees will be able to generate their own UAN and download e-UAN Card PDF, so they will no longer be dependent on their employer to go through that process.

Employees will be able to take their e-UAN Card and UAN to their employer for onboarding, and once they present that to the employer, the employee will have immediate access to EPFO services such as viewing their passbook, updating their KYC details, and submitting claims.