GenKey updates biometric database software to meet EU GDPR’s ‘right to be forgotten’ requirement

GenKey has released version 5.0 of its ABIS (automated biometric identification system), which now fully complies with article 17 of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according a company announcement.

The company said in a statement that the new ABIS 5.0 can effectively and permanently delete a subject’s biometric data from its systems.

Article 17 of the GDPR affords individuals the right to have their personal data erased under certain predefined conditions, and mandates data processors and controllers to permanently erase such personal data once the request has been made, in what is generally referred to as the “right to be forgotten,” GenKey explained in its statement.

It added that achieving compliance to Article 17 is significant in that the heavy use of caching and cache-consistency checks by ABIS requires a highly coordinated design for operations to remove entries from database while it is also being used to process subjects.

GenKey ABIS 5.0 is designed in line with the company’s policy on data protection and the privacy of its partners and clients, according to the announcement, and comes with other important features, one of which makes it possible to retrieve BioHASH templates using a simple enquiry operation.

The new system also comes with an ABIS Connector and an update to the ABIS Dashboard, which is a web application which provides a view of the ABIS’ biometric performance, system health, statistical information on subjects and their biometrics, and other performance indicators.

“We have always pursued privacy-respecting use of biometrics via our BioHASH product range, but have now expanded that to processing in data centers that run ABIS. With an increasingly connected world, we deem it relevant to be able to permanently erase data from our systems. This amplifies GenKey’s commitment to data privacy and the provisions in the GDPR,” said Alty van Luijt, GenKey’s executive director for R&D and acting data protection officer.

GenKey’s ABIS 5.0 software comes a little over a year after the company launched its version 4.0 for small and large scale biometric identification and deduplication projects.

Article Topics

ABIS  |  biometric data  |  biometric hash  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  data protection  |  EU  |  GDPR  |  GenKey  |  privacy