The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre and others to make the process of digital KYC accessible to the disabled, particularly those with facial disfigurements and visual disabilities.

A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan issued 20 such directions to the Centre and different public entities to make the digital KYC process more inclusive.

Among others, the top court directed different ministries to ask all regulating authorities — government or private — to follow accessibility standards as prescribed from time to time.

“The respondents shall appoint a nodal officer in every department responsible for digital accessibility compliance,” it said.

All regulated entities must mandatorily undergo periodical accessibility audit by certified accessibility professionals and involve persons with blindness in user acceptance testing phase while designing any app or website or in case of any new feature being launched, it added.

The top court ordered the RBI to issue guidelines on introducing alternative modes for verifying the “liveness” or capturing a “live photograph” of the customers for digital KYC beyond the traditional “blinking of eyes”.

The RBI was ordered to ensure that on-boarding of new customers could be done using the video-based KYC process.