Alignment on verification with biometrics, credentials needed to deliver value

The value of biometric credentials for verification is helping drive digital ID, and this week’s top stories on Biometric Update show governments and industry taking concrete steps to make digital identities useful. Travel has become one of the clearest sectors where technical interoperability and regulatory consistency have to come together, but ICAO and industry groups are still pushing for greater alignment. At the same time, maturing trust frameworks and certification programs are laying the groundwork for digital credentials to move into everyday use across a wider range of sectors.

Biometric Ventures CEO Vojta Diatka recently shared several ways startups backed by Innovatrics’ venture arm are applying biometrics and digital identity to everyday life in an in-house interview.

Interoperability turns credentials into services

The statement of intent that emerged from ICAO’s TRIP Symposium last week set the stage for a series of developments on the way to making practical use of digital IDs. Just like the panel on digital identity at FTE Global 2026, ICAO is pushing for alignment to make contactless automated credentials like mDLs interoperable with airport systems as DTCs continue to develop.

EUDI Wallets present some similar challenges in terms of delivering an improvement in everyday experiences across many implementations of the same concept. In Groupe Regional Director for Europe Jacques van Zijp writes in a Biometric Update guest post that building services to use the digital wallet’s verification capabilities is the difficult step ahead.

SITA, Amadeus, Idemia PS, IATA and ACI Europe launched the Responsible Biometrics Travel Industry Coalition this week. The group will advocate for the EU’s Digital Omnibus to support digital ID and biometrics in airports amid widening differences in regulatory interpretations.

The UK’s CertifID is now live, and the first five Trust Marks awarded to DVS providers. Perhaps just as important, the machine-readable DVS register is close enough to begin testing, and OfDIA is looking for providers to participate.

Accreditations to New Zealand’s Digital Identity Services Trust Framework are based on the latest version, as of this week. The update is intended to make understanding the appropriate level of assurance clearer and implementing it easier.

Celebrations for the ninth International Identity Day last month showcased Africa’s alignment around expectations of showing progress, ID4Africa ED Dr. Joseph Atick tells Biometric Update. ID authorities are increasingly emphasizing enabling service delivery via the credentials they issue, which Atick argues is how the initiative can build and sustain momentum.

Meanwhile the OpenID Foundation quietly continues the less visible technical work that makes the sought-after interoperability possible. The certification programs for OpenID4VP and OpenID4VCI went live this week, and 16 companies are now registered as wallets, issuers, verifiers or some combination of the three.

Xcelerate and Socure are behind Login.gov’s integration of mDLs under the former’s $163 million contract with the U.S. GSA. They are providing the same real-time identity checks and fraud detection for ISO/IEC 18013-compliant digital IDs as they do for other credentials. Socure also integrated its identity and risk technology with Arc, and the company’s Head of Crypto Steve Goldstein says in an interview that identity verification is going from a compliance check to an infrastructure layer for financial activity.

Federal spending puts identity infrastructure into operation

In addition to Socure’s announcement with Xcelerate, major investments by the U.S. government made headlines this week.

GSA reaffirmed XTec as the main supplier for USAccess 2.0 with opportunities worth up to $238 million. The identity and credential management system provides PIV and other credentials to more than 100 federal agencies. On the biometrics side, ROC has won a $64 million contract to provide facial recognition and video analytics for the DOJ’s Digital Evidence Review Platform. And Thomson Reuters will provide data and analytics to ICE for continuous monitoring of up to a million people under a $125 million contract.

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Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  week in review