Badge zero-knowledge biometrics with no stored credentials win BIG awards

Badge Inc. has already begun accruing awards in 2026. The enterprise identity authentication firm has been named a winner of the 2026 BIG Innovation Awards in the Technology and Internet category. A release announcing the win says Badge Co‑founder Dr. Tina Srivastava has also been honored individually as one of the year’s most innovative leaders.

The BIG Innovation Awards celebrate “organizations and individuals transforming industries through applied innovation and intelligent platforms.” Badge says the 2026 winners were illustrative of “a defining shift.”

“In the age of AI, innovation demands trust, privacy, and security at the core.”

Russ Fordyce, chief recognition officer for Business Intelligence Group (BIG), says Badge’s zero‑knowledge biometric technology is “a breakthrough that strikes directly at the heart of cyber threats and identity theft.”

“Badge didn’t just rise to the top – it redefined the standard,” he says. “Badge delivers innovation with the utmost purpose: practical, original, and urgently necessary.”

Badge co-founder ‘redefining cybersecurity’

Dr. Tina Srivastava is an MIT-trained rocket scientist who holds more than 30 patents. In naming her as a BIG Innovative Individual, BIG recognizes the importance of her leadership and technical vision.”

“Dr. Tina Srivastava is redefining cybersecurity,” says Fordyce. “Her vision behind Badge’s identity-without-secrets technology is solving one of cybersecurity’s most fundamental challenges – eliminating stored credentials and sensitive information – with rare technical courage and precision.”

Srivastava says the recognition “underscores the importance of protecting identity for both humans and the intelligent agents that now act on our behalf.”

“In a world where people and AI systems must authenticate securely, identity without secrets is essential. Badge removes the risks of stored credentials so humans and machines can operate with trust, privacy, and confidence.”

In late 2025, Badge was recognized as Fast Company’s Innovation Team of the Year.

No-storage model takes templates out of equation

No-storage models could be the future of biometrics. As long as biometric databases exist, they are hackable. Given that they are unique and permanent, any breach is critical.

An article by Hiroki Uchiyama, director and head of the Security Innovation Lab at Hitachi America R&D, explores the so-called storage dilemma.

“Traditional biometric systems follow a simple formula: capture features during enrollment, store a mathematical template, and compare future inputs against it,” Uchiyama says. Stored templates, which are “permanent mathematical representations of a person” remain vulnerable, even when encryption is factored in. Hitachi’s post says “it doesn’t erase the fundamental risk: you’re storing something that should never exist.”

“From a cryptographic lens, it’s like keeping a master password that can never be changed. The more layers of defense we add, the more we’re compensating for a flaw we could instead eliminate.”

The question that follows is, “what if cryptographic keys could be generated directly from biometric input, with nothing left behind?” What if there was no need for a template?

Hitachi’s answer is Public Biometric Infrastructure (PBI). In this model, biometrics are not converted to a template that is stored and later compared with the original. Instead, Uchiyama says, PBI operates on a generate-and-discard principle: “during enrollment, biometric data is used to generate a public-private key pair. The private key is discarded, and only the public key is retained.”

“For authentication, the biometric data is recaptured, and the private key is regenerated on demand. Once authentication is complete, the key is deleted entirely.”

“The system doesn’t match templates; it regenerates cryptographic keys from similar-but-not-identical inputs.”

No more cards, only biometrics

The key enabler is “fuzzy extractor algorithms,” which apply error correction codes to account for natural variations.

Uchiyama says converting noisy biological signals into stable cryptographic keys “has long been a holy grail in the field. Our PBI system solves this problem by identifying the most stable features of a biometric system and generating error correction data during enrollment.”

Hitachi has been working with regional banks in Japan, as well as Tobu Railway, to apply PBI in live scenarios. Since it operates within standard Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) frameworks, it integrates with existing systems and hardware security modules. Implementation requires installing compatible biometric sensors at endpoints and configuring backend systems to accept dynamically generated keys.

“At the endpoint, typically an ATM, biometric data is captured, used to generate cryptographic keys, and then discarded after secure communication is completed,” Uchiyama says. “From the user’s perspective, it’s simple: place a finger on a sensor and conduct your transactions – no cards required.” And for banks and other implementations, PBI reduces issuance and overhead costs.

Uchiyama believes PBI is an inevitable technology, the future of biometrics, destined to mark “a complete paradigm shift from storage-based to generation-based security.” He envisions globalization over the long term, a universalized system in which “your body becomes a secure, portable key generator, wherever PBI is supported.”

Hitachi is not the only company trying to address the issue of biometric template storage. Norway is exploring homomorphic encryption from Mobai for protecting biometric templates used in the country’s banking industry. The method allows computations to be performed on encrypted data without requiring decryption.

Article Topics

Badge  |  biometric template protection  |  cybersecurity  |  data protection  |  Hitachi  |  homomorphic encryption  |  zero knowledge