Airport biometrics providers and government contractors thankful for rollouts, project wins

It is little surprise that biometrics for air travel and border checks featured in several of the most-read articles on Biometric Update over the week Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, one of the biggest travel weekends of each year. A biometric passport contract win for HID Global, moves by FacePhi, SITA, and a Vision-Box partner, and a guest post from a Thales expert on what passengers can expect provide perspective on the current marketplace. Elsewhere Idemia supplying projects for Australia and Mississippi, Yoti’s new series on humanitarian projects, and corporate changes at SenseTime (to publicly traded shares) and Fingerprint Cards (with two new subsidiaries) round out a busy week.

Top biometrics news of the week

Yoti kicked off a six-part series on humanitarian digital identity projects with an article by Head of Social Purpose Ken Banks on a food and cash ration management system in Mozambique. The sheer number of people in internally displaced persons camps in the country poses a challenge, and Yoti proposes a solution involving an offline fingerprint database.

Idemia has won a contract to supply fingerprint biometric software for Australia’s High Commission in Paris to support law enforcement checks, while Idemia I&S NA has been revealed as a technology supplier for Mississippi’s mobile driver’s license, which is now available as an optional digital ID.

HID Global is supplying technology for Ireland’s new application process for biometric passports under a $16.5 million contract through its local subsidiary. The company is providing the back-office processing system and system-of-record for passport and foreign birth registration applications.

Biometric solutions and apps for air travel continue to advance, with FacePhi selected to supply a Spanish airport operator and a trial involving SITA technology launching in Taiwan. The facial recognition capability of AirAsia’s Super App, developed with Vision-Box, is rolling out to new airports, and in a Brazilian trial has been expanded to a new user group, and apparently to more technology providers.

Thales digital ID expert Neville Pattinson returns with a guest post on the changes travelers are starting to see at airports across the U.S. and around the world. Those changes include touchless processes through a biometric token and a mobile application that gives the traveler control over it.

Frontex completed a pair of pilot projects for the EU Entry/Exit System. The agency trialed self-service kiosks, seamless travel corridors and mobile devices as biometric data-capturing methods at Bulgaria’s border with Turkey and Spain’s border with Gibraltar.

SenseTime has passed one of the final steps ahead of an IPO that could bring in $2 billion, with regulatory approval for a Hong Kong listing. Having already weathered a series of delays, the company appears to be in a race against the effective date for mandatory national security reviews for Hong Kong listings by mainland China-based companies.

Fingerprint Cards is splitting its business between two new entities and moving them closer to their respective target markets. Fingerprint Technology Company (FPC) will handle the side of the business that makes sensors for mobile phones and PCs and be based in Shanghai, while Fingerprint Cards Switzerland will handle biometric payment cards.

An EAB workshop on face image quality, put on with help from international standards, U.S. and EU groups, was held earlier this month. The three-day event featured presentations and panel discussions by some of the leading experts in facial recognition from both the public and private sector, ranging in focus from what algorithms to use to how international standards should be developed.

Effective authentication of digital identities requires taking on a certain degree of complexity, because of the various procedures, infrastructures, data sources and risk profiles encountered, Trulioo COO Zac Cohen writes in a Biometric Update guest post. A singular digital identity network, perhaps utilizing a self-sovereign model, could streamline the process, Cohen suggests.

ID4Africa convened a close look, the first of three in a series, at digital ID system failures and cases of exclusion. Research ICT Africa, the Center for Internet and Society, the Maryland Test Facility, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Unwanted Witness were among groups contributing insight.

ID4Africa is also looking for speakers to contribute to its upcoming livecast on mobile technologies supporting inclusive digital identity for development. The February 16, 2022 event will explore the extent to which basic or feature phones can be used to advance digital ID in developing countries, and qualified experts, thought leaders and practitioners from relevant sectors are invited to apply to participate by January 10.

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Article Topics

airport biometrics  |  authentication  |  biometrics  |  biometrics research  |  border management  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  facial recognition  |  fingerprint recognition  |  standards  |  week in review