Biometric payment, access and ID cards launching around the world

Biometric cards for payments, access control and digital identity in several regional markets featured prominently among the top news stories in the biometrics industry this week. Efforts to harness digital identity to revive the travel and tourism sector are advancing, usually in combination with facial recognition, but experts wonder if banks might be uniquely positioned to help move digital ID development along.

A new partnership on biometric payment cards by Mastercard and Idemia is being launched with a pilot expected in Q4. The card will be offered under the name F.CODE Easy, and will be issued by Singapore-based MatchMove in the Asian region.

A fingerprint access control card with proximity detection capabilities has been developed by Sentry Enterprises with an Ambiq microprocessor and Fingerprint Cards sensor modules. The card is intended to provide converged biometric access control for enhanced security in a wide range of verticals.

Huduma Namba is moving toward the issuance of identification cards, which will be embedded with biometric data to enable authenticated access to government services. Data privacy and security remains a common concern, but regulations are reported to be now in place to provide a legal framework for Huduma cards.

Belarus is also launching biometric ID cards, with a test of 800 cards expected to begin soon. Australia’s plans to provide digital identity for government service access are variously bogging down and advancing, with a proposed system of generating physical copies of driver’s licenses from mobile digital credentials mercifully put to rest in NSW and the federal government seeking information from potential vendors for a digital visa system.

‘Father of Global Entry’ John Wagner, who until recently was the Deputy Executive Assistant Commissioner of U.S Customs and Border Protection, has launched a new consulting venture, according to G2Xchange. With touchless, single-token travel processes based on biometrics on the agenda in so many places, his expertise will be in high demand.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to drive digital identity efforts in several different sectors, and apps utilizing facial recognition for the aviation and tourism industries involving Yoti, the Commons Project Foundation and the World Economic Forum, and Onfido have been rolled out recently, along with a smartphone camera-based biometric rapid testing app from Safen Labs.

Several carmakers have announced biometric features in new models, while Syngrafii is addressing the auto sales industry and Chinese electric vehicle-maker Nio has partnered with Cerence to do so. Little wonder, with the automotive biometrics market forecast to grow at over 13 percent a year to pass $1.5 billion by 2025.

The pandemic will take a 22 percent bite out of fingerprint biometrics revenues this year, according to a new research report, but will bounce back strongly in 2021. ABI Research expects the market to reach $40 billion by 2025, with more touchless technology, on balance.

The unique opportunity for banks to take the lead in digital identity remains, according to the Mobey Forum. Payment cards involve ID, and are already accepted around the world, and the industry already has a history of handling sensitive data without overly involving governments.

Acuant VP of Engineering Glenn Larson writes in a Forbes Technology Council post that as cash use diminishes, the need for identity-based digital trust grows. Larson believes new verification systems need to be created for the online world, and that education efforts in the area should be ramped up.

A blog post from buguroo recasts the old stereotype of the bank robbery, and the person attempting to pull it off, in more realistic terms that are explored in the sub-discipline of “cybercriminology.” Cyber-cops are going to have to adapt rapidly to different norms and values of the digital world to catch the new kinds of robbers who inhabit it.

NIST has published a new leaderboard for its facial recognition accuracy with masked faces test, and also published a new FRVT 1:1 Verification report. The new FRVT is the first requiring CentOS compiling, but both leaderboards look broadly similar to the previous versions.

Facial recognition is among the technologies that have been identified by the EU as potential risks for being implemented in rights-violating surveillance systems after they have been acquired for a different stated purpose. New restrictions are therefore being placed on exports of the technology.

Balancing privacy and transparency was already a fraught challenge for law enforcement agencies around the world before mountains of video started accumulating from cameras placed in officers’ cars and on their bodies. Oregon, Ohio Sgt. Jason Druckenmiller tells Biometric Update in an interview about how his department addressed this challenge with automated video redaction technology from Veritone.

An encryption technique developed by Trueface and presented at the International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB) allows face biometric templates to be embedded in QR codes and almost anything else, the company says. CEO Shaun Moore and CTO Nezare Chafni explain to Biometric Update how ‘Faces on Everything’ works and what it could be used for.

An awareness-raising web page and interactive facial recognition tool called Erase Your Face lets people experiment with how erasing different parts of a facial image affects a facial recognition algorithm. Information and editorial are mixed in this product of YR Media and Stanford d.school’s K12 Lab.

Genetec has launched a podcast with an interview of former Privacy and Information Commissioner for Ontario Dr. Ann Cavoukian and Genetec President Pierre Racz. They discuss privacy in the context of 2020’s global health crisis and widespread protests.

A panel on bias in AI at the recent BlackTechFest conference attempted to define the problem, its factors beyond training dataset balance, and what to do about it, diginomica reports. Panelists ask why some seem to want to ditch technology, rather than fix it, and consider the opportunities for beneficial AI.

Centrify Cybersecurity Evangelist Andy Smith writes in a Biometric Update guest post that the use of VPNs to establish connections outside of the company network to support work from home stretches them beyond their original use and most secure application. The granular control provided by modern privileged access management solutions is more appropriate for securing remote workforces, Smith contends.

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Article Topics

access control  |  biometric cards  |  biometric identification  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  eID  |  facial recognition  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  identity document  |  identity verification  |  privacy  |  smartcards