Anonybit looks towards Indian biometrics market, expanding Armatura partnership

Decentralized biometric authentication infrastructure developer Anonybit is planning to expand its footprint in India and the Middle East by deepening its partnership with Armatura, an Atlanta-based biometric matching algorithm developer and hardware maker.

Anonybit is setting its eyes on India just as the country is experiencing a surge of fraud related to Aadhaar. The biometric identity system is often used for onboarding and KYC, but many organizations still rely on SMS and OTP for authentication. A part of that is also scams through the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS), a platform that allows merchants to accept payment from customers through Aadhaar authentication.

Anonybit believes it can address these vulnerabilities by introducing multi-modal authentication that doesn’t expose raw biometric data thanks to decentralized technology. The New York-headquartered firm supports face, fingerprint, iris and palm recognition.

“India has shown tremendous leadership in the application of biometrics and we are eager to help unlock even more use cases in a responsible, privacy-oriented way,” says the company’s Co-Founder and CEO, Frances Zelazny.

Anonybit’s regional market strategy will be guided by its new Strategic Advisor, Sachin Ratta,  Armatura’s global director of sales. Before Armatura, Ratta led large-scale government and enterprise identity deployments for Idemia and Next Biometrics, according to the firm’s release.

Aside from matching algorithms, Armatura makes palm biometrics readers, standalone reader controllers and biometric camera modules. IPVM has reported that Armatura is an overseas holding subsidiary of ZKTeco’s investment arm.

Last year, the two companies collaborated on introducing palm biometrics to Anonybit’s platform.

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  Anonybit  |  Armatura  |  biometrics  |  decentralized biometrics  |  India  |  Middle East