Biometrics industry maturation shown in deals and IP
The scale of biometrics product integrations, apps, database searches and an acquisition this week demonstrate the industry’s advancing maturity, and its full cycle. Along with the regular drumbeat of progress and conflicts with national digital ID programs, they made up the most-read stories of the week on Biometric Update. Sentry Enterprise’s fingerprint recognition in products from door-lock giant Allegion and FaceTec’s implementation in a CBP app will be used by numerous people, while Clearview AI has filed for a patent on a way to search through a database with many pictures of all of them, and Socure has paid $70 million to take over Berbix.
Top biometrics news of the week
A set of case studies on litigation over digital ID, and the implications for digital public infrastructure were examined in a recent webinar by a panel at the Center for Human Rights & Global Justice. Panelists explained legal battles against national ID schemes or aspects of them in Uganda, Mexico, Serbia and Kenya. One of the key themes that emerged from the discussion is the difficulty making sense of consent for participation in systems that are essential to living a normal life.
Australia’s government has published a new national ID strategy document setting out plans to increase the use of biometrics to secure online interactions between people and government services. The plan is the first digital identity strategy update for the country in over a decade, and emphasizes the need to establish robust data protection to stem public sector fraud losses.
Stopping theft from public coffers is one of the stated motivations behind the UIDAI’s partnership with IIT-Bombay to develop fingerprint liveness detection. An attempt by Indian media to discover the details of that liveness partnership have been rebuffed, however. A fraud ring exploiting biometric POS devices has been busted in Andhra Pradesh, meanwhile.
Residential and commercial lock-making conglomerate Allegion has integrated biometric access cards from Sentry Enterprises with its portfolio to offer security upgrades in the form of two-factor biometric authentication. The combined solution can be layered onto existing locks from Schlage and other brands for fingerprint biometric authentication at the edge as a password replacement.
People travelling to the U.S. from forty different countries can use CBP’s ESTA app, which features 3D face biometrics and liveness detection from FaceTec, for advance travel authorization. In addition to submitting a short video selfie and a passport scan, users can get notifications and answers to common questions through the app.
Clearview AI has submitted a patent application for it’s new method for running searches against a database with over a billion images without losing speed or throughput. Terence Liu explains how the new search system works and explores the implications in an exclusive interview with Biometric Update.
Socure is paying $70 million in cash and stock to integrate Berbix’ ID document verification engine and at least part of its team. Socure Founder Johhny Ayers makes some bold statements about the document verification market, and believes the addition of Berbix’ patent-pending tech immediately improves the performance of DocV.
Instead of implementing biometrics on the loyalty cards or mobile phones customers use when they order and pay, restaurants are increasingly turning to biometrics for “hands-free” transactions. With successful American chains like Panera and Steak ‘n Shake adopting Amazon One and PopID technology at points-of-sale, consumer use is primed for a jump.
Legacy payment methods should not be subject to the European Union’s incoming digital identity regulations, six groups representing European financial services businesses argue in a joint statement. The eIDAS update is too vague in points, they say, and could lead to unnecessary costs for merchants and payment processors.
Frontex has identified a set of biometric technologies it would like to pursue for their potential value in securing Europe’s borders. Infrared and 3D facial recognition, and iris recognition with near-infrared and visible light are among the five technology areas in which the agency wants to evaluate vendor products.
The Biometrics Institute shares some predictions for the future of biometrics gleaned from a recent members-only event featuring takes from FARx, Vision-Box and Paravision representatives. Multi-modal biometric fusion, the need for clear regulation, and the perpetual technological arms race between bad actors and security were among the topics discussed.
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