UK Home Office to test remote fingerprint enrolment via smartphone for entry

A notice from the UK government says the Home Office will conduct trials of remote and in person biometric fingerprint collection using smartphones, focused on foreign nationals.

“To maximise convenience and security,” it says, “the Home Office will increasingly look at where remote self-enrolment of face and fingerprint biometrics can be used by foreign nationals applying to come to the UK.” The notice gives the example of using a mobile phone to enroll fingerprint biometrics at home.

“To understand whether this is possible, the Home Office needs to continue to test the performance and usability of these emerging biometric technologies. These feasibility trials are the latest stage of doing this.”

The trials will assess presentation attack detection (PAD), as well as enrollment.

A privacy information notice about the trials details what types of data will be processed, how long it will be retained, and what data protection measures are in place.

It also specifies the suppliers of contactless fingerprint technology for the trials as VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd, Touchless ID (Identy), Dermalog, Veridium, iProov, Telos, Integrated Biometrics, Blue Biometrics, Thales DIS and IDLoop. Sub-suppliers include Sciometrics, Tech5, DXS and Gambit and support services are provided by Deloitte, Ingenium Biometric Laboratories and DSTL.

Border moves mean more biometric captures, challenges

The trial is intended to assess contactless biometrics self-enrollment as part of the application process for all visitors and migrants to the UK under its incoming Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system.

A previous set of feasibility trials was held by the Home Office in 2021, which found kiosks were closer to providing the requisite performance for biometrics self-enrollment than smartphone apps at that time.

Since then, fingerprint biometrics for smartphones – perhaps the most common way many of us first used biometric authentication in a daily context – have continued to evolve, as contactless methods develop to replace or augment touch. Use cases also continue to proliferate, particularly for border control.

The EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) has prompted innovation from biometrics firms trying to tackle the challenges it presents in requiring high volumes of face and fingerprint biometric enrolment. iProov has run trials of an app for remote fingerprinting, to be used by non-EU citizens who must submit fingerprints on their first crossing of Schengen borders.

But remote fingerprint captures are subject to severe Al-powered fraud and morphing attacks. They also face a regulatory challenge, in that reading biometric fingerprint data in passports is protected by Extended Access Control (EAC) and can only be read by authorities of EU member states.

“How can you turn these phones that you use for remote enrollment to read fingerprints?” asked iProov’s Head of Identity Jonas Ingelstrom during a recent eu-LISA round-table. “Terminal access, or Extended Access Control, is only provided to certain hardware and we cannot give that to billions of phones, that would be very unwise.”

Nigeria has also been exploring contactless biometric capture for passport applications, enlisting homegrown companies Iris Smart Technologies and Newworks to deliver the NIS Contactless Biometrics App, for use by Nigerian citizens living abroad. The app went live worldwide on December 1.

Article Topics

biometric enrollment  |  biometrics  |  contactless biometrics  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  Home Office Biometrics (HOB)  |  mobile biometrics  |  presentation attack detection  |  UK