Biometrics disrupting the future of movement, on and offline

Biometrics are disrupting different areas of life, from how people interact with governments for basic services to the esoteric world of surveillance and spycraft. Biometric Update’s most-read articles show how biometrics and AI are enabling interactions that would have seemed farfetched just a few years ago, with attendant new challenges. DPI must be accompanied by data protection for people to trust it, online age checks could reshape the internet but worry proponents of a certain vision of digital freedom. And if EES works as hoped, then at the end of a rollout schedule approved this week, travellers will go through seamless border crossings, and then be able to pass between EU countries with no further checks at all.

Top biometrics news of the week

Advent appears to be moving ahead with the second stage in its divestment of Idemia, hoping to get up to $3.5 billion for the Public Security company. Advisors are reportedly on board, and Acuity’s Maxine Most tells Biometric Update the eventual transaction could even lead to another.

Industry adaptation seems natural, given how many headlines this week were taken by concepts, technologies and projects that did not even exist a decade ago.

Digital public infrastructure

The Philippines is working to improve both the national ID and internet connectivity pillars of its DPI. Filipino lawmakers are considering a proposed legal amendment to secure the national ID against fraudulent registrations and remove visible data from ID cards to protect data privacy.

The launch of Eswatini’s digital government app has been marred by allegations that personal data in the system is vulnerable to exposure. The app is connected to a wide range of services, but its impact will be limited unless it wins public trust.

Global DPI leader Estonia has added identity verification to its digital government app, after a legal amendment was adopted to allow an app update and for relying parties to treat IDV through the app. The app functions as a digital wallet, storing Estonian or EU digital IDs. It has yet to reach mainstream use, though, with only 52,000 users.

A digital ID broker platform plays a key role in Uruguay’s DPI, Juan Pablo García Cairello of AGESIC writes in a guest post for Biometric Update. He explained how the country was spurred by the pandemic to create the broker, the role they play in providing services, and the broker’s future plans.

Secure borders and spycraft

The UK is rolling out self-serve biometrics kiosks for the EU’s new EES, including at a new part of the Port of Dover on newly reclaimed land. Biometric gates have also been deployed by airports in Spain and Portugal, as countries adopt different timelines for implementing the Travel to Europe app. The EU Parliament approved a plan to slow-walk the rollout of EES with progressive targets over 180 days. The timeline takes the form of targets for how many border crossings it is live at, but actual implementation is carried out at the national level, so that is where the incentive will matter most.

CBP needs the help of face biometrics vendors as it launches its Global Entry Seamless Border Entry program, and has published a series of solicitation and planning documents to find them. The agency wants feedback from biometrics providers to help inform the technical and operational requirements and acquisition strategies it adopts for the system. The change is part of a transition by CBP to an expanded role with a much larger budget, and a role for Silicon Valley companies like Anduril and Palantir, to bring together biometrics, AI and immigration enforcement. That convergence includes removing rules for where the biometric TVS operates.

Anduril and Palantir both received early backing from the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, as part of an effort by the spy agency to adapt to the new digital reality. That reality includes remote biometric identification capabilities that upend some of the founding assumptions of spycraft, the Washington Post reports, and change the kinds of challenges facing the intelligence community. For instance, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has not been calling around asking for information or help getting into accounts, but an alert sent to all embassies and consulates warns that a deepfake of him has. The sophisticated text and voice deepfake scam has targeted foreign and domestic government officials, and an investigation is ongoing.

Searching for less online harm

Search engines have six months to put age assurance in place for Australian users, with the next stage of the country’s Online Safety Code taking effect. This will allow them to avoid serving pornography or “high-impact” violent content to minors. The Code is agnostic on the form of age verification or estimation used to do so.

A Santa Clara University law professor argues that age assurance laws “segregate-and-suppress” minors, causing harm in the process to those they purport to protect. The harms he identifies are debatable in extent of impact compared to the protection, though, and arguments like those from NetChoice based on freedom from government tracking face a difficult policy environment.

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Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  week in review