Biometrics research, smart payment cards and facial recognition trending this week

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

Facial recognition

NEC will be demonstrating biometric recognition solutions that use Microsoft Azure Internet of Things (IoT) technology, at the Hannover Messe 2016 trade fair this week in Hannover, Germany. NEC’s manufacturing solution combines NEC face recognition technologies and Factory Energy Management System (FEMS) with Azure IoT technology to create a complete end-to-end solution for factory maintenance, repair, and operation. The retail solution enables a retail outlet to understand the age and gender of their consumers and collects data regarding their interests and purchases.

Chinese application developer PING AN TianXiaTong (PING AN) has released facial recognition technology that it says it will incorporate into its wealth management solutions and other services in an effort to create the fastest lending platform in China, requiring only six minutes to complete a loan application. In developing its platform, the team at PING AN’s Science and Technology AI Laboratory examined facial structures, features and muscles to deliver a clear analysis of facial movement, providing an end-to-end authentication service.

Ideal Innovations, Inc. (I3) has released FABIS-Mobile, a next-generation mobile face matching solution that can search 1-5 million records on a mobile device, more than a hundred million records on a single laptop, and 500 million to more than a billion images on a single server with matching speeds in excess of 25 million comparisons per CPU core. i3’s partner, Secure Planet, will be demonstrating this new solution at Expo Seguridad in Mexico City, the Michigan State Police Biometrics Conference in May and the Police Security Expo in June.

Fingerprints

Japan Today has unveiled more information about the government`s plans to test cashless payment technology using fingerprints and other biometric markers to make transactions safer and easier for foreign tourists. Trials of the payment platform will include payments using fingerprints and vein authentication solutions. The pilot will see inbound tourists register their biometric data and credit card information at airports and then they will be able to conduct tax exemption procedures and make purchases using biometric readers installed at participating stores.

The Miami Marlins Park stadium has deployed Clear’s biometric technology, enabling Miami Marlins fans to bypass long security lines by scanning their fingerprint. The new Marlins CLEAR Lane gets enrolled fans through security and to their seats in minutes. The one-time enrollment process only takes a few minutes and leverages CLEAR’s secure biometric platform. Once enrolled, fans just have to tap their finger at the gate, scan their ticket, and head on in to the game.

Australian firm Azonto Petroleum has acquired Israeli smart gun startup Clipfort for $28.1 million. Clipfort develops firearm magazines that can only be activated when the gun’s owner swipes his or her fingerprint, ensuring personal security for weapons. The merged company will begin trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) by July. The new board of directors will include Clipfort founder Daniel Biran and several new directors nominated by Azonto Petroleum and Clipfort.

Henrik Sundell, Fingerprint Cards’ (FPC) General Counsel and member of the executive management team announced he will be leaving the company this spring. Sundell joined FPC in the spring of 2015 and has also served as secretary of the FPC Board of Directors. The company also announced that it will host a conference call by CEO Jörgen Lantto and CFO Johan Wilsby at 15:00 CET on Thursday, April 28, 2016 to discuss its interim report for the first quarter of 2016.

Precise Biometrics has released its Annual Report for 2015, which finds that the company’s sales during the year increased to US$6.93 million from US$3.86 million in 2014. The report also mentions that Precise’s fingerprint software is integrated into mobile devices from nearly all major manufacturers, along with an established strong foothold in the Chinese mobile market, which accounts for roughly one third of global smartphone sales.

Airport security

Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris will begin testing facial recognition technology next month. According to Augustin de Romanet, CEO of Paris Aéroport, which operates Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly, biometric technology will be used alongside more visible and tighter controls in public areas and behind the scenes, and that specialists will examine footage from the 9,000 CCTV cameras in Paris airports.

Earlier this week the U.S. Senate passed a long-term FAA reauthorization bill, without an amendment proposed by Sen. Jeff Sessions to speed up the adoption of a biometric entry-exit system at U.S. airports. Sessions’ amendment provided that no funds from the FAA Reauthorization Act be obligated “for the physical modification of any existing air navigation facility that is a port of entry, or for the construction of a new air navigation facility intended to be a port of entry, unless the DHS certifies that the owner of the facility has entered into an agreement that guarantees the installation and implementation of the biometric exit system at the facility not later than two years after the date of enactment of the Act.”

Curaçao International Airport has unveiled an integrated Automated Border Control (ABC) solution by Vision-Box to expedite border control processes at both arrivals and departures. A common-use-based orchestration platform connecting all passenger touchpoints provides border guards with a real-time view of the passengers’ individual clearance processes, as well as centralized control and optimization of the whole security infrastructure.

Smart cards

Kenya-based Smart Applications International will distribute more than 500,000 OTI MediSmart cards across Kenya and other East African countries to give Smart’s members access to healthcare services in different countries using the same card but billed in the relevant currencies. Smart provides technology solutions that offer easy and secure access to healthcare services. OTI’s MediSmart solution is an information management and claims submission system that incorporates contactless smart card and biometric technologies.

Earlier this month, SmartMetric demonstrated its biometric payment card with built in fingerprint reader at the Smart Card Alliance Payments Forum and saw very favorable results. According to a company statement, SmartMetric is now in talks with credit card issuing banks around the world who are looking at issuing the biometric fingerprint protected card to satisfy customer concerns about card fraud while at the same time mitigating their own card fraud losses.

Biometrics research

Sarah Laszlo, a cognitive neuroscientist and an assistant professor at the State University of New York, Binghamton is exploring whether brain waves have advantages over other biometrics, including fingerprints or retinal scans as a security measure to prevent identity theft. Laszlo interweaves physiological and computational work in a symbiotic fashion, such that she interprets electrophysiological data in the context of computational models.

Military applications

According to a recent Defense Department budget submission, the U.S. Army will design experiments for the “detection of insider threats based on biometric identification” in the 2017 fiscal year. The Army’s objective is for the technology evaluation to determine how biometric protections can be deployed in tactical environments that are loud and chaotic. Officials at the Pentagon will examine testing tools such as voice and keystroke recognition.

Brand focus

Some of the most ambitious biometric identification projects in the world are taking place in Pakistan, where the government has determined the best way to deal with high-stakes national issues like fraud and terrorism is through the use of identification authentication technology. Biometric Update recently spoke with Kwick High Tech & Solutions CEO Mohammad Waseem Rafi about how the company is positioned to serve diverse, large markets both domestically and internationally, and about its experience working on the NADRA managed SIM card registration project.

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Article Topics

biometrics  |  Entry/Exit System (EES)  |  healthcare  |  smart gun