UPSC Successfully Implements Facial Recognition in Civil Services Preliminary Exam
The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has successfully implemented facial recognition technology in the recently conducted Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2026 to prevent impersonation and examination malpractice.
The preliminary examination for prestigious services including IAS, IPS, and IFS was held on May 24 across 2,072 exam centres nationwide. Around 8.19 lakh candidates had registered for the exam, while approximately 5.49 lakh aspirants appeared.
The facial recognition system was introduced after incidents of impersonation were reported in previous years. Using a specially developed mobile application, invigilators verified whether the candidate appearing for the exam matched the photograph uploaded during registration.
The application was developed with technical support from the National e-Governance Division under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
According to UPSC, the verification process took only a few seconds per candidate and was successfully carried out across exam centres.
