The Supreme Court of India in People’s Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India (2001) has established that the right to food is an integral component of the right to life under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. The National Food Security Act, 2013, also grants pregnant women, lactating mothers and children a statutory entitlement to free nutritious meals for their healthy life. However, in July 2025, the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Government of India, mandated facial recognition-based verification for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children to access nutrition benefits such as take-home ration under the POSHAN 2.0 mission, an integrated nutritional support program. This requirement works through a mandatory facial recognition-based electronic Know-Your-Customer (e-KYC) verification. As of August 2025, about 76.9% of the beneficiaries have completed their e-KYC, exposing the remaining quarter of the beneficiaries to the risk of delayed access to the nutrition benefits. Furthermore, Anganwadi workers– frontline nutrition and childcare workers–have also argued that the mandatory facial recognition requirement is impractical in the rural field conditions where compliance is constrained by the lack of mobile phones, outdated Aadhar (India’s national biometric identification system) numbers and photographs, facial scan failures and server disruptions. This shift towards technology-dependent access to nutrition entitlements has converted welfare responsibilities into technological demands at a time when 12 per cent of India’s population continues to be undernourished, as indicated by the Global Hunger Index 2025 report. The facial recognition requirement goes beyond administrative convenience and calls into question the legitimacy of the State placing technological barriers between marginalised groups and the food that is crucial for their survival.