FaceTec 3D face authentication to secure mobile voting with new partnership

Biometric mobile voting may be closer to reality in the U.S. and other jurisdictions, with a new partnership announced between FaceTec and Hybrid Mobile Voting System maker Neuvote to secure remote ballots with ZoOm 3D face authentication. The companies plan to restore fundamental trust in democracy with their solution, according to the announcement, which it says is rooted in the security and resilience of the voting infrastructure used.

“We’re very excited to be working with Nuevote to solve an incredibly important challenge at the very core of the world’s democracies,” states Kevin Alan Tussy, CEO of FaceTec. “Neuvote is increasing voter participation via mobile voting, and bridges the paper-ballot past to the e-voting future. We are honored that our ZoOm authentication technology has been chosen to ensure that eligible voters are physically interacting with their devices during the democratic process, preventing election fraud while vigorously protecting voter privacy.”

ZoOm was recently updated with an enhanced biometric capture process FaceTec says delivers a 98 to 99 percent success rate for first-time users.

The companies say traditional voting methods and associated logistical challenges can deter voter participation, but FaceTec’s cutting-edge AI and the trustworthy digital and analog security of Neuvote’s Hybrid Mobile Voting System can replace traditional methods with identity verification via a mobile device. Neuvote’s product uses a patent-pending digital-to-paper approach, allowing remote voter access while maintaining traditional security practices such as human visual verification.

Neuvote CEO Matthew Heuman says his company has critically assessed traditional voting processes to identify where security and identity verification problems could arise.

“The integration of FaceTec’s ZoOm, shown to be the most secure biometric authentication method available, provides a solid foundation of trust for the rest of our solution,” says Heuman. “In addition to removing hard data targets from the process, keeping the data moving, and distributing the data directly to the polling locations, we’ve made sure unequivocal voter identification and eligibility are established from the start to ensure the remainder of the process can be fully trusted. And ZoOm has proven to be exceptionally easy to use, a paramount concern in such a broadly deployed application like voting.”

Neuvote has identified data security, authentication, confirmation, privacy and secrecy, and verifiability as the five barriers to mobile voting, and says its Hybrid solution is created to overcome them. The company’s first deployment is planned for Ontario, Canada, in 2020, and it plans to launch in the U.S. market by 2022.

An attempt was made by a third party during the 2018 biometric mobile voting pilot in West Virginia to infiltrate the system, prompting the Secretary of State to note the value of multiple biometric security layers in the process.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometrics  |  elections  |  FaceTec  |  facial recognition  |  identity verification  |  mobile app  |  voter registration