Biometrics in healthcare, banking and counter-terrorism trending this week

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

Healthcare

Intent Solutions has introduced new medical device technology called TAD, “Take As Directed”. TAD is built around a portable dispenser containing a disposable vial filled with medication attached to a reusable electronic device. The device is designed to be pre-programmed with the prescribed regimen and patient biometrics. The device notifies the patient that it’s time to take the pill, scans their fingerprint to authenticate the patient, delivers the pill, and records the data.

Carolinas HealthCare System has helped bolster its patient safety initiatives and reduce its duplicate medical records error rate from 2.9 percent to 0.01 percent using ID and authentication technology by Imprivata. Carolinas selected Imprivata’s palm-vein biometrics solution to complement its enterprise master patient index and is reporting that 97 percent of patients have accepted the technology and agreed to palm-vein scans.

Facial recogniton

The NTIA has developed a consultation process to examine the commercial use of facial recognition technology and write a voluntary code of conduct for private companies that use it. A preliminary draft of the code was presented this week, but privacy groups have reiterated their opposition to the process, which they define as an opportunity for lobbyists to “craft purposefully vague proposals without any real safeguards for biometric data”.

Researchers at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China’s Police Equipment Joint Research Lab have developed a police vehicle equipped with a facial recognition system that can pick criminal suspects out of a crowd. Aside from comparing people’s faces to a ‘persons of interest’ database, the surveillance system can also recognize license plate numbers and car types, identify mobile phones within its radius, or can be set to look for ‘one specific person’.

Banking

According to a recent Mobey Forum survey, the use of biometrics in banking and payment systems is on the verge of becoming mainstream as major technological advances and economies of scale have enabled biometrics to gain strong momentum as a secure authentication factor to verify a customer’s identity in the areas of mobile banking and payment. Biometrics also brings added value to other financial services, such as know-your-customer (KYC), e-contracting, insurance and more.

SmartMetric reports that it is has been receiving positive reception to its new biometric payment card from card issuers in Europe. The biometric payment card technology, designed to work with chip or EMV cards, uses a built in fingerprint reader to authenticate a user’s fingerprint to activate the card. It is estimated that by the end of 2016 more than 80% of payments cards in use will be EMV chip cards.

La Banque Postale has obtained approval from French data protection regulatory organization CNIL to offer a voice biometrics solution by Talk to Pay for customers to authenticate card not present transactions. Using a voice generated unique dynamic CVV, cardholders are protected while they purchase online, by mail or by telephone. Patrick Wajsbrot, President of Talk to Pay, said that in addition to La Banque Postale, LCL, Crédit Agricole and Carrefour Banque are also interested in the technology.

Fingerprints

AMREL announced this week that the FBI has certified its XP7-ID rugged biometric handheld. AMREL developed the XP7-ID in cooperation with Integrated Biometrics. Fingerprints are captured by Sherlock, an Integrated Biometrics module which utilizes a state-of-the-art light emitting sensor. This sensor uses very little power, needs less maintenance than traditional methods, and captures FAP-45 quality images.

NEC and Government Acquisitions (GAI) have successfully delivered NEC Corporation of America’s NeoScan45 mobile fingerprint capture devices to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE will integrate the 2 and 10 print mobile biometric collection devices to allow collection of biometrics in the field. Being able to identify and or verify subjects at the first point of encounter is essential for officer safety, timely and accurate decision-making, efficiency and effectiveness of operations.

Fingerprint Cards (FPC) and Precise Biometrics are providing the fingerprint technology for the new Redmi and Gionee smartphones. The Gionee W909 features the FPC touch fingerprint sensor FPC1025 and Precise Biometrics’ algorithm solution for fingerprint recognition in mobile devices, Precise BioMatch Mobile. The Redmi 3 Enhanced edition features the FPC touch fingerprint sensor FPC1035 and Precise BioMatch Mobile.

Access control

CloudLock announced that customers using its Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) and cybersecurity platform will now have better control and security with RSA Via Access. RSA Via Access provides identity assurance and single sign on across SaaS, Web and other applications. Through intelligent analysis of the contextual elements of the access request combined with intuitive, mobile authentication options, RSA Via Access gives end users convenient access without compromising on security.

ZKAccess has formed technology partnerships to provide advanced integrated biometric security solutions to customers around the world. The company CEO explains how enterprise integrators are demanding improved physical security solutions that are integrated, scalable, easy to use and affordable and why technology partnerships with industry leaders such as Schneider Electric, RS2, AMAG and Lenel allows ZKAcess an unprecedented opportunity to bring affordable biometric security to customers all over the world.

Counter-terrorism

According to security experts, recent terrorist attacks in Brussels will impact the development and deployment of facial recognition technology. Continued attacks in public spaces will encourage both U.S. and European lawmakers and border security professionals to ramp up the collection and real-time analysis of biometric data from travellers, along with the expansion of terrorist biometric databases.

Human Recognitions Systems’ (HRS) CEO and founder Neil Norman recently appeared on the BBC current affairs show Newsnight to discuss shifting behaviours and the importance of technology, such as biometrics, to provide additional defences against terror attacks.

Development

This week at Build, Microsoft revealed that its “Windows Hello” biometric authentication solution for Windows 10 will soon work with websites and that USAA Bank will be among the first companies to take advantage of this development. The USAA Bank serves US military veterans and their families with financial services. Using Microsoft Edge, USAA Banking customers will be able to log in using either fingerprints, face or retinal scans.

Google announced its plans to enter the competitive voice recognition market by opening up its speech recognition API to third-party developers. In an effort to draw in more developers, Google’s speech recognition app will initially be offered for free at launch and will subsequently be available for a fee in the near future. Google has yet to unveil details of its pricing, but the company will likely provide low-cost pricing tiers that could eventually increase over time after it becomes an established player in the voice recognition market.

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Article Topics

AMREL  |  biometrics  |  counter-terrorism  |  Fingerprint Cards  |  Google  |  Human Recognition Systems  |  Imprivata  |  Integrated Biometrics  |  Microsoft  |  Mobey Forum  |  NEC  |  NTIA  |  RSA  |  SmartMetric  |  Talk to Pay  |  ZKAccess