Biometrics faces up to the challenges of industry maturity

Face biometrics perform a range of applications for several industries in the week’s most-read stories on Biometric Update, reflecting a mix of challenges and advances. Idemia plans to win back a contract to put face biometrics in South Africa’s airports, while HID previews a camera designed with the aviation industry in mind, and Indicio’s take on DTCs prompts a review of the concept’s advantages and limitations by FaceTec, Goode Intelligence, Thales and World Privacy Forum execs. The ACLU is alarmed about law enforcement and security use of facial recognition, and DHS’ evaluation of selfie biometrics for ID verification shows a broad range in performance, and good news for HyperVerge.

Top biometrics news of the week

An illegal ID card issuance scandal in Malta has led to a suspended sentence for a secondary player and a claim a risk to national security by a civil rights group. Fraudulent IDs were issued to 18,000 foreigners in return for bribes, in what a former lawmaker calls it “the biggest ever corruption scandal” in the country’s public sector.

National Public Data is an unfortunate name for the company responsible for the largest ever exposure of Social Security Numbers on the dark web, and presumably a rash of future identity theft. The Florida firm lost personal data on hundreds of millions of people, mostly Americans, and is now being investigated by at least two Attorneys General, a joint team of congressional subcommittees, and the DOJ.

Idemia says the cancellation of its contract to deploy face biometrics systems in South African airports is “unfortunate,” but the company tells Biometric Update in an email it will not fight it. Instead, Idemia plans to win the same contract, terminated this time by ACSA due to a dispute with a local partner, again when it is retendered.

Ethiopia is changing the payment terms for the biometrics enrollment partners of its Digital ID for Inclusion and Services Project to cover their incremental operational costs. Partners will receive $1.50 to $2 per each verified registration, for an overall cost of $30 million to $40 million to 20 million enrollments. The country is also working with the World Bank to hire four technical consultants, one a MOSIP architect, for its Fayda national ID.

An MoU between Somalia’s national ID authority and banking association sets to improve financial inclusion through digital ID. The plan is for banks to help sign people up for their NIN, which can then be used for identity verification for financial services, resulting in more access to them with less fraud and money laundering.

Zambia is getting $100 million from the World Bank to build up its digital public infrastructure, including an upgraded digital ID system. The country also plans to deploy MOSIP’s EET to integrate its existing biometric databases and ID systems with digital services.

The ACLU of Maryland is warning police about the limits of facial recognition, while in Minnesota the group says the Mall of America’s deployment could result in thousands of misidentifications, despite Corsight’s test results with NIST and DHS. The California chapter argues that state residents don’t support any government use of facial recognition.

Digital Travel Credentials are effective and highly promising for the specific use case they were designed for, but are not appropriate for broad implementation, a panel of industry leaders tell Biometric Update. Indicio’s argument that DTCs are “the strongest digital identity” prompted a questionnaire of executives from FaceTec, Thales, World Privacy Forum and Goode Intelligence.

DHS S&T revealed the findings of its assessment of remote identity verification technologies, which measured template creation from ID documents and selfies, and biometric matching accuracy. Of 16 participating vendors in RIVTD Track 2, only 10 were able to adequately complete the entire process. S&T says they represent they state of the art. HyperVerge threw off its cloak of anonymity to claim a win as the only vendor to meet all DHS benchmarks.

HID Managing Director of Biometrics Vito Fabbrizio previews the company’s forthcoming face biometrics camera for the aviation industry in an email interview with Biometric Update. The Facepod includes HID’s multispectral U.ARE.U camera, and the company gave a sneak peek at ASIAL in Sydney, Australia this week.

IDPartner is shutting down, despite raising $3.1 million just over a year ago, after its bank-based digital identity network failed to gain enough co-demand traction. Co-founder and CEO Rod Boothby announced the decision in a LinkedIn post, describing a common challenge for two-sided marketplaces and the achievements of the team in the short time it was together.

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Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  face biometrics  |  week in review