Biometrics providing piece of mind as work on tech trust continues

Biometrics are providing protection against fraud as digital identity and biometric access control enter the mainstream in several of the most-read articles of the week on Biometric Update. Australia is launching a trust exchange and its citizens are increasingly using biometrics to access government services, while Trinsic points out the scale digital ID has already reached, Microsoft brings Idemia biometrics to enterprises through its Entra ID and Infineon forecasts a leap for biometric cards.

But trust is not automatic. An American police force balks at using biometrics for access to secure areas, and in the UK, Fraser Sampson wants stronger regulatory regime to help police win trust for facial recognition use. Trust must still likewise be won for digital ID, as OIX’ Gareth Narinesingh notes in an interview.

Top biometrics news of the week

Australia’s digital ID system continues to make inroads, with the myGov app up to 5.6 million users for signing into the government’s single sign-on platform, and roughly half of those using the app’s biometric security features. The government has also launched a proof-of-concept for its national digital trust exchange, or TEx, with an $11.4 million investment. TEx works with the mGov digital wallet and supports limited disclosure.

Proponents need to explain clearly how digital IDs can benefit society to shepherd the concept through “a critical phase,” OIX Identity Development Director Gareth Narinesingh tells Biometric Update in an interview. The public does not even fully understand that digital IDs are not necessarily the same as national ID or a central database of IDs, he says, and trust must be cultivated as the DIATF evolves.

Trinsic is trying to put a number on the digital IDs issued in the world, as part of its mission to make them practically reusable, and counts 2.5 billion identities in 146 different networks so far.  That includes Aadhaar, which accounts for over a billion by itself, but also those from vendors like Clear, Airside and Yoti.

The UK does not have the regulatory foundation it needs to enable the accountable use of facial recognition by police, former Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner Fraser Sampson writes in a Biometric Update guest post. Sampson notes the overarching purpose of the nation’s Surveillance Camera Code of Practice, and the need to go further with future policy to reach the balance the public expects.

The Las Vegas Police union President is threatening to boycott providing security for NFL games if personnel are forced to use biometrics for access to restricted areas. The force, which has been using facial recognition for several years, argues that the data could fall into the wrong hands, putting officers at risk.

DHS has launched season four of the Technologically Speaking podcast, with S&T Deputy Under Secretary for Science and Technology Julie Brewer as its guest for the first episode. She discusses the need to support front-line organizations with science, so that TSA can handle the 2.4 million passengers it sees each day, and Homeland Security Investigations can handle its 40,000 cases.

A catastrophic data breach at Florida-based data broker National Public Data has prompted several class action lawsuits and boosted the prospects of legislation cracking down on data brokers. The hack resulted in the theft of 3 billion records containing PII, and highlights the well-established problem the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act is intended to address. The Senate has now taken up the Bill, but the Biden Administration opposes it, arguing that commercial data sources are important to homeland security.

Biometric cards are set to leap forward in global market adoption, Infineon writes in a sponsored post contributed to Biometric Update. The company argues that the ease of implementation, reliability and sustainability of enrollment options are key factors for the success of biometric cards, and highlights a recent launch that points the way forward.

Selfie biometrics and liveness detection for user authentication are now publicly available for Microsoft Entra. Face Check on Entra Verified ID uses Idemia’s biometric technology, and is showing early promise in cutting fraud. The tech giant says its enterprise identity management service now also defends against deepfakes. The Entra ID ecosystem is also rapidly expanding, with Verasec, Keyless, 1Password and Yubico all announcing integrations.

Seon COO Bence Jendruszak advocates for the implementation of multi-layered fraud prevention, including behavioral biometrics, to counter the wide availability of AI tools that undermine the security of traditional biometric authentication techniques. The implementation must avoid common pitfalls that degrade the user experience or make managing it overly difficult.

Experian has acquired NeuroID, which provides behavioral analytics already integrated with CrossCore and PreciseID, but not behavioral biometrics. Further fraud-prevention and risk assessment integrations could be coming, including with the biometrics and digital identity technologies picked up in Experians 2023 acquisitions of IDVerse and Keyless.

Please let us know about any interviews, thought leadership articles or other content we should share with those in biometrics and the broader digital identity community, either in the comments below or through social media.

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  week in review