Pushing and pulling biometrics and related technologies from regulations and standards is one of the main threads of the most read articles on Biometric update over the past week. Idemia’s biometric payment card with Zwipe and Idex Biometrics technologies has been approved as meeting Mastercard and Visa standards, and the mDL provided by the GET group in Utah is increasingly accepted, while Vision-Box continues to expand and Smart Engines has been deployed at international airports. . The hiring at Idemia North America and B-Secur and a new appointment to GDS in the UK indicate which side has the most effect in the overall market.
Top biometric news of the week
Idemia’s biometric payment cards based on its F.CODE platform have achieved full certification by Visa and Mastercard, with the latter issuing an official letter of approval for the technology. Partners Zwipe and Idex Biometrics, who bring their technology to cards, also claim to benefit from certifications.
Idemia North America, meanwhile, continued to strengthen its team with the appointment of Douglas Harvey as the new CTO. Harvey will focus on developing cloud solutions for US government entities to deploy biometrics and credential security. The company also added Lisa Sullivan as senior vice president of travel and transportation and Lisa Shoemaker as vice president of government relations.
The World Economic Forum advocates digital ID for developing economies in a white paper, identifying three accelerators to recover from the economic damage of the pandemic. Accelerators are increased access to public and private services and financial management for individuals, and financing for businesses.
Banks are starting to find value in biometrics beyond remote integration, writes Innovatrics founder and CEO Ján Lunter in a guest post. Likewise, governments are catching up to adopt a myriad of uses for biometrics, from town hall to border. Concerns such as skewed data continue to challenge customers, which is why Lunter provides advice on choosing a biometrics provider.
The UK government has set aside £ 400m (around US $ 546m) to fund GDS’s OneLogin SSO capability in its fall budget, and plans to launch it in five months under the leadership of the new director of GDS Digital Identity, Natalie Jones. The government is also working on a Gov.uk application with ID document chip scanning and biometrics.
A UK government program is also helping Freevolt step up its development of biometric smart card technology. Acceptance into the UK Scaleup Program provides access to funding and assistance in planning for internationalization.
B-Secur has raised $ 12 million to fuel the advancement of its heart rate biometrics in the US market. Fittingly, the cycle was led by the company’s top US investor, First Capital Ventures. A series of new appointments accompanied the funding announcement.
Clearview AI entered the NIST FRVT, demonstrating high accuracy across all use case categories and demographics in the latest update. CEO Hoan Ton-That tells Biometric update in an email that the demographic breakdown included in the results of the 1: 1 check is the reason the company chose this benchmark for their initial entry.
The data protection authority of the Canadian province of Quebec has declared the use of facial recognition with temperature detection systems prohibited under data privacy laws. The Dutch DPA has warned retailers against using facial recognition to prevent shoplifting, and a group of national data regulators have released the modest results of their engagement with video conferencing providers.
It would surprise many people to know that Canada has been experimenting with voice biometrics at its U.S. border for decades, according to consulting firm Berkeley Research Group. An agreement between the Clinton and Chrétien governments in 1996 resulted in a trial of identity verification by voice recognition and a PIN code to allow night crossings at entry points closed at night in rural areas. The Canada Border Services Agency says the technology had a 95% accuracy rate, but was shut down following September 11.
Collin Davis and Mark Horne of Pindrop suggest voice biometrics as a path to logical password-less access control, due to the unique characteristics of the modality and the evolution of interaction methods. Voice cannot only be used for authentication simultaneously with the delivery of an instruction or the fulfillment of a request, it is increasingly used for remote engagements and interaction with new systems such as than automobiles and IoT.
Vision-Box’s airport biometrics partners plan to expand the experiences of contactless travelers, with a pilot project at Lisbon airport and stakeholder discussions in the United Arab Emirates. Elsewhere, the Moscow SVO has deployed Smart Engines passport scanning technology in 20 electronic gates, and LAX is testing reservations for TSA security checks.
Mobile driver’s licenses continue to advance in the United States, with Utah’s mDL provided by the GET group being legally accepted for age checks on alcohol purchases, and Mississippi unveiling plans to launch its mDL as well as a digital ID wallet that could also be used to store proof of COVID Vaccination.
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Articles topics
biometric cards | biometrics | border management | digital identification | digital identity | facial recognition | financing | identity verification | integration | regulation | standards | voice biometrics