MARKET NEWS

BY    Chris Burt

Biometrics for travel documents, airport processes and border security made up four of the top ten news items in the digital identity space on Biometric Update this week. Travel document applications are being made easier with biometrics in the UK, airports in the U.S., UK and Dominica are increasing their use of biometrics with systems from Yoti and Idemia, among others technology providers, while a new border system is being implemented at Iran’s Southern limit and considered for America’s main Northern border. A wide range of applications from payments and remote customer authentication to document privacy and law enforcement also made headlines.

Visa has certified its first contactless biometric payment card for high-security EMV transactions, approving a card made by Thales Digital Identity and Security with Fingerprint Cards biometric technology. Thales biometric card is already certified by Mastercard, and the question of when wide commercial availability of fingerprint biometric payment cards will begin now seems down to whether large-scale launches will be carried out this calendar year.

Nomidio has launched its multi-factor biometric authentication for live chat, to enable identity verification with face or voice biometrics without the user interacting with an IVR system. End users can also authenticate their identity with other Nomidio customers without having to reenroll, which the company says has compliance and data security benefits.

A new app from the UK government allows people applying for travel and visa status documents to register face biometrics and travel documents remotely. The Sopra Steria service is already live, and government agencies hope to process 4,000 applications a day with it.

An airport in Atlanta is expanding its use of facial biometrics, one in Michigan is deploying biometric smart helmets, and a rapid COVID-19 testing system that uses Yoti’s biometric digital ID app is being trialed at Heathrow in London. As the aviation industry creeps towards recovery, experts from HCL and Amadeus make pitches for IoT and multimodal reservations, respectively, as critical pieces of the new operational puzzle. The U.S.’ TSA is testing self-service checkpoints from Idemia with facial biometrics in Washington, D.C. as it works on how to carry out security checks in a safer, socially distanced process. Domestic travellers have the option of using their driver’s licenses, passports, and various other picture IDs to perform a standard ID document capture and biometric selfie process with Idemia’s terminal.

New technologies including facial recognition, drones and smartphone apps can help secure the Canada-U.S. border, according to a coalition of public and private sector transportation groups. Biometric passport scanners will be deployed in Dominica to improve the island nation’s border security, and a biometric border security is also being launched in Iran.

By bringing its National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Nigeria may be able to leverage the records of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), which has biometrics from 150 million more people registered in its database, and the data protection expertise of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). Idemia, meanwhile, is providing biometric technology to support a huge cash transfer program in Guinea, with the hopes of lifting 1 million people out of extreme poverty.

The use of continuous face biometrics to eliminate shoulder surfing is explained by Smart Eye Technology CEO Dexter Caffey to Biometric Update in an interview. Caffey emphasizes the importance of layering multiple biometric modalities to authenticate users for applications from digital signing to document access, which is why Smart Eye is working on integrating behavior and iris recognition into its platform.

A trend in Europe towards addressing alleged GDPR complaints in the court system, rather than through government regulators, is examined by Politico. Legal complaints are being filed against TikTok, Oracle, Salesforce, and Marriott, the latter over a data breach the U.K.’s data regulator has already said could be worth $99 million in fines. With the promise of faster resolutions and dedicated resources, the legal system may play a larger role in regulatory enforcement going forward.

New applications mostly related to face and iris biometrics are expected to drive the global biometrics industry to annual revenues of more than $70 billion in just four years, according to a new BCC Research report. The report suggests that emerging technologies like affective computing and gait recognition will also generate market growth in applications from banking transactions to forensics.

FIDO Alliance Executive Director and Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Shikiar writes for TechTalks about the importance of the distinction between biometric recognition and authentication, particularly in regard to face biometrics. Shikiar argues that facial authentication, particularly performed on the device, avoids the aspects of biometric facial identification that make it controversial.

A video from Google promoting the security of its data centers has revealed that Iris ID provides the tech giant with biometric authentication for physical access control. Multiple generations of Iris ID products have been used in security systems from integrators Siemens, Tyco and ADT, and IrisAccess has been implemented in data centers in the U.S., Ireland, Finland and Belgium as well as Asia.

A real-time public facial recognition system with biometric technology from NEC and integration by DataWorks Plus is being deployed by police in New Zealand, according to a new report. The news has caused debate about how transparent New Zealand police have been, as the system increases from capturing 15,000 images per year to 150,000.

BitVenture Marketing Manager Carla van Straten identifies financial services, medicine, recruitment and telecommunications as four industries seeing particular improvements in digital onboarding with biometric identity verification in a Biometric Update guest post. The implementation of biometric selfies is already allowing companies in these industries to reduce the complexity and length of processes that leads to abandonment, while reducing risk, van Straten argues.

Redrock Biometrics Co-founder Hua Yang recently discussed the company’s technology and its applications from payments to establishing digital identity on Soar Payments’ PayPod podcast. Other topics covered include connections made through Wells Fargo’s accelerator program, palm biometrics compared to other modalities, matching encrypted tokens without decrypting them, and its PalmID-X palm print and vein technology.

As educators turn to remote proctoring technologies to help them maintain the trustworthiness of examination results, the proctoring solutions themselves are being graded, with mixed results. CNN  reports on a petition against the technology’s use by students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a 900 percent increase in growth by Proctorio, according to its CEO, and one professor who used the software earlier this year, but is not planning to again.

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