Biometrics undergoes rapid change as AI prompts races with fraud, sustainability

Biometrics are being asked to run races against AI-powered fraud, to deliver government services and reach sustainability in financial services, as illustrated in the top stories of the week on Biometric Update. Fortunately, the technology is going through a period of rapid change, and supporting fast advances in adjacent areas like identity verification and digital identity wallets.

REAL ID lags universal financial inclusion

The role of biometrics in government service delivery continues to grow at pace around the world.

ID.me has inked a $1 billion Blanket Purchase Agreement with the U.S. Treasury Department. Under the 5-year contract the company will provide identity verification and authentication for external users, and adds to ID.me’s impressive string of major federal government wins.

The pace of public service delivery in Japan was inadequate during the pandemic, and the government’s New Year’s resolutions include continuing to speed them up through continued digital transformation. Eighty percent of Japanese now have a My Number Card, and a new app tentatively named “Myna” is expected to launch in 2026.

Zambia is planning to issue digital ID cards by the end of this year under its Digital Zambia Acceleration Project. An official with Smart Zambia cited digitalized public services as evidence of the country’s digital transformation progress so far, and says the World Bank is happy with the pace.

The Gates Foundation has been a pillar of the international development donor community for years, spending $150 million on financial inclusion in 2024. By 2030, sufficient progress will have been made, and enough momentum gained for sustainability, for Gates to exit the space. Some of that funding has contributed to gains in digital ID adoption, particularly in countries with developing economies.

The U.S. created the REAL ID program so that states could issue identity documents that the federal government could trust. But a DHS agent told a federal court that 20 years and billions of dollars later, the Alabama man’s ID could not be trusted as proof of his citizenship.

EUDI Wallets continue their long march into production with a municipality in the Netherlands testing the integration of the wallet with the Once-Only Technical System. The proof of birth credential met the technical requirements of eIDAS, and will be followed by an attribute retrieval test.

Accenture and Japanese telecom NTT Docomo have formed a partnership to build Universal Wallet Infrastructure for decentralized, enterprise-grade digital trust services. FaceTec is also participating in the digital identity wallet project as a liveness detection provider, a LinkedIn post from Chief Identity Technology Strategist Jay Meier indicates.

Labour MP Josh Simon gets the unenviable task of leading the development of the UK’s digital identity system as minister for digital reform. Simon has been, uh, promoted from acting parliamentary secretary for the Cabinet Office. He previously served as director of Labour Together, but is also the co-chair and co-founder of a pro-businesses party group.

Biometric technology maturity

NEC has launched technology fusing iris and face biometrics for on-the-move authentication, with trials expected to launch this year.  The multimodal biometric matching of subjects in motion even as airports around the world catch up with e-gate deployments shows the pace of improvement in the capabilities of the software.

Identity verification technology has gone through a rapid evolution both motivated and supported by AI. The altered market landscape was mapped out in an online presentation this week from Biometric Update featuring Goode Intelligence. The webinar shared insights from the “2025 Digital Identity Verification Market Report and Buyers Guide,” and representatives of Daon, Oz Forensics, Innovatrics, Authsignal and Yoti showed off their technology and discussed the emerging challenges their customers face.

Social media immaturity

Roblox is expanding its use of biometric age estimation from Persona to unlock chat features globally, as the social gaming platform attempts to rebuild its reputation on the fly. Roblox’ speedy embrace of FAE notwithstanding, some in the industry were anticipating the move.

France and Ireland are standing near the end of the queue of countries legislating age assurance requirements for social media. Meanwhile, the U.S. threatens to hold Australia’s eSafety Commissioner in contempt, and a corporate lobby group sues states over their social media restrictions.

Please let us know about any online seminars, podcasts or other content you think we should pass along to those in biometrics and the digital identity community, either in the comments below or through social media.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  week in review