Biometrics in border control, aviation, financial services & more top stories

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

Australian to deploy biometric border system

In one of the top stories this week, Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection announced it is moving ahead with its plan to overhaul the customs and border process for incoming and departing travellers by introducing a new biometric border solution.

South Africa considers biometric e-visas

In a briefing of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, Economic Opportunities Minister for the Western Cape, Alan Winde, emphasized that the South African government needs to revise its new visa regulations and suggested that the country introduce biometrics on arrival.

Fiserv platform adds Fujitsu biometrics

Fujitsu Frontech North America announced it partnered with Fiserv to integrate Fujitsu’s PalmSecure biometric technology into Fiserv’s DNA account processing platform.

Analyst reports

There were several analyst reports published this week, starting with the release of BBVA Compass’ “Biometrics: the Future of Mobile Payments” report, which finds that a new wave of capital and new technology based on biometrics, physiological and behavioral authentication is quickly replacing PINs and passwords.

In BIS Research’s new report entitled “Global Biometric Authentication & Identification Market: Focus On Modality, Motility & Application – Estimation & Forecast, 2015-2020”, the analyst group forecasts the global biometric market will grow from $10.08 billion in 2014 to $25.31 billion in 2020.

RichRelevance published a new UK study, “Creepy or Cool” that reveals that 70% of UK shoppers find facial recognition technology that identifies age and gender in order to display product recommendations “creepy”.

And finally, IndustryArc published a new report entitled “Next Generation Biometrics Market Analysis (2014 – 2020)“, which explores the market by authentication type, biometric type, and by application.

Fingerprints

Fingerprint Cards (FPC) announced that the new Android smartphone OnePlus 2 features FPC’s touch fingerprint sensor FPC1150.

Alaska Airlines is nearly four months into a new pilot program in which it is using CLEAR’s biometric authentication technology to verify the identities of frequent travellers flying out of Mineta San Jose International Airport instead of checking their IDs and boarding passes.

Finally, during the course of defending the legality of the Aadhaar biometric scheme before India’s Supreme Court this week, the chief lawyer for India’s central government argued that privacy is not a fundamental right bestowed by the country’s constitution. India’s government also asked the court to reconsider all Supreme Court judgments over the past two decades that defined privacy as a constitutional right.

Facial recognition

Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology was criticized by privacy advocates, who have argued that the technology should only be used with explicit permission

Researchers at the Institute of Anthropomatics & Robotics and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a new facial recognition method that uses thermal signature to recognize faces in the dark.

And finally, MasterCard is testing new facial recognition technology that would let customers verify their identity by taking a self-portrait photo with a camera phone.

Financial sector

Wells Fargo formed a new Innovation Group, which will work in partnership with its major businesses to meet the continually changing needs of customer and ensure it is one step ahead of its competitors,

Finally, credit card companies and Canadian banks are developing biometric authentication technologies to enable customers to validate transactions both in-store and online using biometric identifiers.

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  airport biometrics  |  Australia  |  banking  |  BBVA  |  biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  BIS  |  Facebook  |  Fingerprint Cards AB  |  Fujitsu Frontech North America  |  market report  |  Mastercard  |  South Africa