Biometrics back digital government gains around the world

Digital government was in the spotlight this week on Biometric Update with the release of the OECD rankings and a full day of focused coverage on Tuesday. Amadeus could soon take on additional elements of government digital transformation beyond airport biometrics if it acquires Idemia Public Services, and a couple of influential organizations released white papers on connecting digital ID and payments, whether through dedicated credentials or digital wallets. Other top stories of the week introduce workforce fraud solutions, the next step in age assurance and advanced liveness detection.

Transforming public services, payments and borders

The University of Cambridge launched a project to help governments establish and enforce effective regulations for digital identity with a presentation including representatives from the Gates Foundation, the Upanzi Network, Mastercard and Ethiopia’s NIDP. The Cambridge DPI Regulatory Programme: Digital Identity consists of a series of reports, workshops, and a knowledge-sharing hub.

The OECD Digital Government Index shows a significant improvement compared to the 2023 version, but also challenges for governments to keep up with the pace of change and public demands. Countries like Portugal and Chile showing major gains in public sector digital transformation celebrated the results.

Beyond the OECD, a new authentication framework for public service access has been introduced by St. Lucia. The NAF provides a digital ID accessed through the DigiGov portal or a coming mobile app for secure access to digital government services, including civil registration and online payments.

The UK’s sudden pivot, at least in name, from the DIATF to the Trust Framework for Digital Verification Services, included recognition that a private sector DVS market is already in place, and should be fostered. DVS providers will be less encouraged by the suggestion that the public sector should handle access to public services.

Idemia Public Security holds a robust portfolio of contracts related to digital government, including for mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) in the U.S., as well as in biometrics for airport modernization. This could explain why Amadeus has emerged as a suitor in Idemia PS’ sale by Advent, at a price that could exceed $3 billion.

Three unnamed countries are behind schedule implementing EES, the EC says. Otherwise, eu-LISA says the system is in a normal, stable operational state, as it lays out its plans for interoperability between the EES, ETIAS and Eurodac biometric systems.

A World Bank white paper proposes a conceptual model for reusable digital IDs specifically for fast payments. The Payments Identity Credential would be based on VCs and involve the cooperation of national ID authorities and fast payment systems.

Visa considers how digital identity wallets can improve public service delivery and payments in a white paper of its own. Moving beyond ID-only wallets could for example allow people to use the same credential to view their tax information and make a settlement payment.

Workforce fraud protections

Checkr and Oracle have each introduced biometric identity verification systems to protect against different forms of workforce fraud. Checkr has partnered with Socure for face biometrics, liveness and document analysis to catch fraud in the hiring process. Oracle has built biometrics and liveness from vendors including Daon and Clear into its enterprise IAM platform for access control and reauthentication throughout the identity lifecycle.

Other top stories

AI chatbots are the next age assurance target for regulators in a handful of countries, citing risks from nonconsensual porn to emotional dependency. On social media age restrictions, the UK is consulting and Poland has joined the fray.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies warns that ICE’s collection of many millions of people’s personal information may create a counterintelligence vulnerability for the U.S. Data aggregated by Palantir software provides a valuable target for foreign intelligence services, according to the report.

Incode has passed iBeta’s Level 3 biometric presentation attack detection evaluation, with no false matches or non-matches on either iOS or Android. The Deepsight liveness detection software was developed specifically to handle sophisticated attacks including deepfakes.

Trulioo CTO Hal Lonas says on this week’s episode of The Biometric Update Podcast that in identity verification, the bad guys are the early technology adopters. He also talks about his background in rocket science and drawing inspiration from the Apollo 13 mission.

Biometric anonymization provider Attain Insight has joined the Biometrics Institute, in line with its commitment to ensuring responsible technology deployment. The Biometrics Institute has grown to more than 200 member organizations, 25 years since its inception.

Please let us know of any podcasts, white papers or other content you think we should share with the people in biometrics and digital identity in the comments below or through social media.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital government  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  week in review