Biometrics and digital wallet integrations bridge travel’s present and near-future

Biometrics and digital wallets are taking their position for the future of travel, from getting through airports, to crossing (and controlling) borders and organizing complex supply chains. Biometric Update’s top stories of the week reflect the widespread change, and provide a few examples.

The UK says it is ready to control it’s borders with digital ID, and rights groups say they’re ready to push back. Surveys from Amadeus and Phocuswright say travelers are ready, for instance, Eurotunnel says it is ready, and digital wallets will soon be ready in Ghana and Djibouti. But these digital systems also represent potential vulnerabilities, as seen in a hack that disrupted thousands of flights.

Have biometrics, digital wallet, will travel

Major disruptions at several of Europe’s largest airports last weekend were traced back to a ransomware attack on the common-use passenger processing system from Collins Aerospace. Biometric check-in and boarding systems relying on the software were affected. The UK’s National Crime Agency has arrested an individual on Tuesday, the BBC reports, but the investigation remains ongoing.

SITA discusses how the infrastructure fits the biometrics and digital ID elements together in a blog post, and surveys from Amadeus and Phocuswright point out the projected benefits of biometrics-based air travel for all stakeholders and how they can be realized in practice. An omnichannel approach, like that employed by the ecommerce sector, will help. That gives digital wallets a prominent place, but also means making room for AI agents and different forms of digital ID.

Authorities in Ghana plan to build digital wallet functionality into the Ghana Card to enable payment authentication. The move could turn the national digital ID card into a revenue-generating tool for the government, while lowering costs for banks and easing transactions for Ghanaians. The Ghana Card already has passport functionality as well.

Djibouti has signed an MoU with Visa to work on a national digital wallet, in the wake of an expanded agreement on digital wallet technology between Visa and Tech5. Djiboutian officials say the digital wallet will be developed to ease access to digital public services, payments and digital identity.

Having people get out of their cars, as they will have to when leaving the UK via the Eurotunnel for EES biometrics checks, is effectively the opposite approach. But the deployment of biometric kiosks, including hundreds from IN Groupe, is expected to be completed on time and avoid chaos.

Mandatory digital ID for employment eligibility checks is the UK’s plan to reduce illegal immigration, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced this week. The Tony Blair Institute and Big Brother Watch argued for and against the plan in anticipation, in ways familiar to anyone who has been following the situation. In both cases, the repetitive messaging indicates that convincing people who are new to the discussion is prioritized over winning over skeptics or finding common ground.

For freight, digital ID bound with biometrics and cryptography connects people and businesses to a whole range of dynamic qualifications and authorizations, Trustd CEO Lyle Cresswell tells Biometric Update in an interview. Cresswell explains the unique identity-related needs of the logistics sector, and how they are served within the context of systems like the DIATF and eiDAS 2.0.

Bad news

A new method of delivering deepfakes with jailbroken devices running iOS 15 or later has been discovered by iProov. The method was traced back to hackers in China, and uses a Remote Presentation Transfer Mechanism server to inject deepfakes into the device to defeat liveness detection systems securing identity verification.

Policing America

The U.S. federal government has taken DNA from thousands of American citizens for inclusion in an FBI database. An issue brief from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology says roughly 2,000 citizens’ and nearly 100 minors’  genetic data was collected by CBP between 2020 and 2024 and passed along for inclusion in CODIS.

It has also been quietly expanding ICE’s surveillance capabilities for years, utilizing Palantir technology in several areas. Gaps in oversight and regulation have enabled the collection of international students’ biometrics as far back as 2018, and lead to a blurred statutory boundary, at best, between civil and criminal enforcement.

Age-gating the internet

Digital Identity New Zealand hosted a pair of roundtable events this week for officials to hear from the ACCS and AVPA about the country’s age assurance options. The discussions focussed significantly on Australia’s recently-concluded trial, but also how international standards and lessons from around the world can be applied in New Zealand.

Instagram is automating Teen Account determinations in Canada, the UK and Australia with an age inference based on analysis of user’s behavior and viewing habits. Those misidentified as teens on Insta can fall back on Yoti’s facial age estimation. Meta is the second Silicon Valley giant to adopt its own age inference to gate content.

Biometric Update Podcast

Professor Fraser Sampson, former UK Biometrics and Surveillance Commissioner and regular Biometric Update contributor, discusses police use of live facial recognition in the UK and beyond.

Wink CEO Deepak Jain talks about the company’s recent merger with global payment technology and services provider Phoenix Managed Networks, why Wink made the move, and how  the merger positions it in the global market.

Please let us know if you come across any podcasts, panel discussions or other content we should share with those in biometrics and the digital identity community in the comments below or through social media.

Article Topics

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