New Delhi, 25 February 2021- The National Testing Agency (NTA) has identified as many as 56 cases of impersonation in the February session of JEE Main 2021. These 56 allegedly fraudulent candidates were tracked by the way of employing AI algorithms on face comparisons. It came to light that the images of these candidates matched with some of the 20,000 top-ranked candidates who sat for the JEE Main exams in 2019 and 2020.
JEE Main 2021 – How was AI used to curb fraudulent incidences?
- After the completion of the JEE Main 2021 registration process for the February session, NTA matched every candidate’s image with the toppers of the previous JEE Main exams. Even if there were repetitive candidates, their details would remain the same. However, the exam authority found a few candidates with similar facial constructions but different credentials.
- Later, NTA conducted a manual verification before deciding to monitor the doubtful candidates.
- As per a recent media report, NTA has now alerted all the test centres regarding this impersonation. The identification documents as well as the images of the candidates are being collected during the entry for the JEE Main exam 2021. A source at NTA confirmed – “We alerted the centre officials a day ahead of the examination where these 56 doubtful candidates were scheduled to take the test. We had also asked them to take identification documents and live images of those potential impersonators and pass it to NTA headquarters for further investigation.”
- These possible impersonation cases shall be further probed during the time of admissions. “Post declaration of the results in May, NTA is likely to pass on these cases to the institutions for verification during the admissions. If the images in the registration form, admit card, and the image used during the entry doesn’t match with the person coming for admission, necessary action can be initiated.”
Previous Cases of Impersonation in JEE Main
It is NTA’s 3rd year in conducting the CBT-based JEE Main exam and the agency has been consistently detecting incidents of impersonation. There have been a few cases of previous year’s toppers appearing as another candidate, scoring high marks, and helping that candidate secure a seat in an engineering college.
According to a few sources in the NTA, similar cases of alleged impersonation have been found in prior NEET-UG examinations. One of the recent cases occurred in October 2020.
To curb such fraudulent activities, NTA has decided to make the system more transparent by employing Artificial Intelligence.
