OPM hack, Apple Watch biometrics patent, behavioral biometrics, analyst reports & more top stories

Here’s a recap of the most popular biometrics industry news that appeared on BiometricUpdate.com this past week.

OPM Hack

In one of the week’s biggest stories, Office of Personnel Management officials confirmed that a data breach involving security clearance files impacted some 21.5 million individuals, including the fingerprint records of 1.1 million people, following a previous breach in May that impacted 4.2 current and former federal employees.

Apple Watch

Apple was granted its third Apple Watch-related patent in the past month for a new biometrics related patent in Europe that covers a new gesture and vascular biometrics-based multimodal authentication system for the Apple Watch.

Behavioral Biometrics

And in a guest post, NuData Security’s director of Customer Success Ryan Wilk discusses how user behavior analytics can help prevent identity theft before it happens.

Analyst Reports

There were numerous analyst reports published this week, starting with MasterCard’s “Emotion of Safety & Security Survey”. Conducted by Braun Research, the report found that 67 percent of Americans have heard of biometric payment solutions and 82 percent have heard of contactless or tap-and-go payments.

Accenture published the Digital Trust in the IoT Era report, which finds that most consumers are growing tired of usernames and passwords and are interested in using alternative authentication methods.

Market analyst firm Persistence offered a detailed overview of the current and future state of the global iris biometrics market in its new report entitled “Iris Biometrics Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast 2015 – 2021“.

Tractica published a new report entitled “Iris Recognition”, which predicts that iris recognition device shipments will total 262 million by 2024.

Goode Intelligence’s “Analyst Report, Biometrics for Banking; Market and Technology Analysis, Adoption Strategies and Forecasts 2015-2020” report forecasted that there will be over one billion users accessing banking services through biometric systems by 2017.

And finally, Gigya commissioned a consumer-facing study with OnePoll entitled the “2015 State of Consumer Privacy & Personalization”, whose findings illustrate a growing public acceptance of next-generation authentication methods like biometrics.

Facial recognition

In facial recognition news, FacialNetwork announced it will soon release ZoOm, a patent-pending 3D facial authentication smartphone app, in the App Store and on Google Play.

Additionally, Singapore’s Changi Airport announced it will install facial recognition technology at the new Terminal 4 to eliminate the need for security staff to manually identity passengers at various check points.

Other

In other biometrics related news, Synaptics Inc. introduced a new Match-in-Sensor fingerprint authentication technology, which it claims is the industry’s first fully hardware encapsulated fingerprint sensor and matching solution.

Bio-Metrica announced it has developed a new multi-factor authentication identity framework entitled BII that uses multiple biometric data types (fingerprint, facial recognition, iris, vein, speech, signature recognition, SMT) and non-biometric data types (smartcard, token, passwords) across different applications.

South Africa will implement biometric regulations for India’s visa applicants by the end of the year, as soon as it develops the proper infrastructure.

And finally, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) implemented a four-month extension to the Bank Verification Number (BVN) program, giving Nigerians until October 31st to enroll.

Article Topics

Accenture  |  Apple Watch  |  banking  |  biometrics  |  FacialNetwork  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Goode Intelligence  |  Mastercard  |  multifactor authentication  |  NuData Security  |  Synaptics  |  Tractica