Biometrics and banking, fingerprint authentication, wearables and security applications most popular this week

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

Fingerprints

Morpho has been selected by Australia’s Victoria Police to update biometric capture devices already in use and to increase the number of one-stop livescan fingerprint, palmprint and face capturing stations at up to 92 police stations across metropolitan and remote locations. The kiosks provide significant efficiency gains by allowing police to quickly and accurately collect and verify identity information.

Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkompf recently announced that the upcoming Letv Le Max Pro smartphone will be the first phone to feature the Snapdragon 820 processor and Qualcomm Snapdragon Sense ID fingerprint technology with liveness detection. The device is expected to be available in the first half of 2016.

Fingerprint Cards has been nominated for a Telekompriset 2015 industry award, which acknowledges excellence in the telecommunications industry and is awarded by the independent Swedish newsletter Telecom News. FPC also announced that its fingerprint technology has been integrated into the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Quanwangtong and QiKu Flagship Ultimate smartphones.

Banking

Texas-based card provider Epic One and banks in Dubai and London are trialing Cardlab’s new biometric credit card. The payment solution combines a fingerprint with a one-time-password (OTP). The card generates a standard OTP for every successful fingerprint authentication. The card was developed in cooperation with Danish firm Quardlock using both companies technologies and patents.

According to new research by information services firm Experian, 64% of UK adults would be comfortable using biometrics to log into their online banking account and 19% of those surveyed also said they would be comfortable using iris recognition as an additional form of identification. Additionally, 61% of people surveyed felt that biometric technology is as secure, or more secure, than the current online system of passwords.

Authentication

ImageWare chairman and CEO Jim Miller talked with BiometricUpdate.com recently about how stronger authentication and ease of use are the main drivers at ImageWare. “We are one of the original pioneers in the biometric industry and continue to strategically position ourselves as a leader in the rapidly growing biometric space.”

In a guest post, Amit Desai, the senior director of solutions marketing at Verint-Systems, discusses how typed passwords and security questions that act as fail-safes are reaching the end of their useful lives and that the rise of voice biometrics promises to end the long game of ‘Guess Who’ during telephone based customer interactions.

Wearables

Researchers at the new Automotive Wearables Experience lab at the Ford Research and Innovation Center are exploring ways to connect crucial health information to in-vehicle technologies. Wearables are an integral part of Ford Smart Mobility, the manufacturer’s strategy to innovate vehicle technologies through connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience, and data and analytics.

At this year’s CES show in Las Vegas, Valencell spoke with BiometricUpdate.com about its biometric sensor integration package. The BioPack sensor system provides patent-protected, high-performance biometric technology in a pre-packaged system that accelerates time-to-market and streamlines product development for wearables.

Market research

Biometrics Research Group, Inc. released its Biometrics and Law Enforcement report that provides a brief, updated overview of the market size and biometric technology available for the law enforcement market in the United States. Also popular this week was the recently released Mobile Biometrics Market Analysis report that examines the growing drivers for mobile biometric authentication and modes of biometric standardization.

Iris recognition

Iris ID has completed a new installation of its iris biometrics technology at CERN, a 21-country European research organization operating the world’s largest particle physics laboratory located outside Geneva, Switzerland. Iris ID installed readers to 25 new security access points to the radiological area of CERN’s Proton Synchrotron accelerator complex, adding to the 55 Iris ID readers that have been in use since 2008 to access the Large Hadron Collider. An additional 20 Iris ID readers will be installed at another CERN accelerator due to re-open in 2019.

This week Daon released details about its role as the software provider for the biometric voter registration project for the National Election Commission in Somaliland. Daon’s identity management software suite includes biometric voter registration and centralized voter management modules. Daon worked with ATEA to design, assemble and deliver the voter registration kits with iris capture and matching functionality using Iris ID for the iris acquisition cameras and recognition technology.

The Unique Identification Authority of India missed the deadline to enroll every resident of India late last year and has since undertaken a “multi-prong” approach to accelerate enrollment including identifying and equipping existing information technology-enabled outlets at various government departments and agencies in states to double as Aadhaar enrollment centers. ”We are advising state governments to utilize places such as high school computer laboratories for setting up centers for enrolment.”

Security

HID Global has identified five security trends that it believes will have the greatest impact this year on identity and access management, citizen identification and the Internet of Things (IoT) including the opinion that the industry will enter its next chapter of connected identities, using multi-layered security strategies that include biometrics to bind identities to their legitimate owners.

The Canada Border Services Agency science and engineering directorate has been working with partners to trial facial recognition technology at various locations and under specific lighting and crowd movement conditions. The border agency plans to compare images of people arriving in the country with photographs of suspects on watchlists to keep out alleged terrorists and other criminals.

Venture capital

AiCure recently closed a Series A fundraising round of US$12.25 million from a venture capital consortium led by New Leaf Venture Partners, with additional participation from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Tribeca Venture Partners, and Biomatics Capital, established by Boris Nikolic, former Chief Advisor for Science and Technology to Bill Gates. Investor confidence in AiCure was driven by its ability to apply machine learning, computer vision, and Big Data analysis to health care. Its patented mobile SaaS platform uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition to visually confirm medication ingestion.

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  AiCure  |  authentication  |  biometrics  |  CardLab  |  Daon  |  Fingerprint Cards  |  Ford Motor Company  |  HID Global  |  ImageWare  |  Iris ID  |  morpho  |  Qualcomm  |  Valencell  |  Verint