2020’s Biggest Trends: This Week’s Top Biometrics Stories

It’s been another busy week in the biometrics industry, with no one particular modality or use case dominating the headlines anymore than usual. Accordingly, this week’s roundup of FindBiometrics’ top stories is a varied one, presenting an assortment of some of the most prominent trends in biometrics of the year.

Facial recognition – and controversy over some of the ways that it’s used – is the key element of the week’s most popular articles, which reported on pushback against the use of facial recognition in public toilets in the city of Dongguan. The technology was used to ration toilet paper – until a public backlash prompted authorities to suspend its use:

Chinese City Suspends Biometric Toilet Paper Program

Then there was some timely news about a COVID-19 immunity credential solution. A televised NBC News report covered the LA Football Club’s plans to implement CLEAR’s Health Pass as a key component of its reopening plans, and featured a brief interview with CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker, who explained that the app puts users in complete control of their health data:

CLEAR Health Pass Gets Attention with Soccer Stadium Deployment

Readers also demonstrated their ongoing interest in the increasingly important matter of liveness detection and anti-spoofing technology with their attention to an interview with FaceTec CEO Kevin Alan Tussy, who spoke with FindBiometrics CEO Peter O’Neill about his company’s $100,000 bug bounty program on a new episode of the ID Talk Podcast:

ID Talk Podcast: FaceTec CEO Kevin Alan Tussy on the State of Face Authentication and the $100K Spoof Bounty

Then there’s the buzzy concept of naked payments, an emerging application area in which biometric technology is used to let consumers make in-store purchases without the need for a payment card, cash, smartphone, or any other piece of hardware in their possession. It looks like such technology could play a part in a new retail-focused partnership between Fujitsu and Zippin:

Fujitsu-Zippin Partnership Points to Contactless Biometric Checkout

And finally, readers also showed a lot of interest in some patent news concerning FMCW and LiDAR technology. StereoVision Imaging’s new patents cover technologies that offer a number of applications including identity verification, surveillance, and biometric monitoring:

SVI Adds Continuation Patents to Biometrics and Object Recognition Portfolio

Stay posted to FindBiometrics next week as we continue to bring you the latest news and interviews from the exciting world of biometrics. To see the hottest stories of the week in mobile digital identity, visit our sibling site Mobile ID World.

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December 12, 2020 – by Alex Perala

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Partners

FaceTec’s patented, industry-leading 3D Face Verification and Reverification software anchors digital identity, creating a chain of trust from user onboarding to ongoing authentication on all modern smart devices and webcams. FaceTec’s 3D FaceMaps™ finally make trusted, remote identity verification possible. As the only technology backed by a persistent spoof bounty program and NIST/iBeta Certified Liveness Detection, FaceTec is the global standard for 3D Liveness and Face Matching with millions of users on six continents in financial services, border security, transportation, blockchain, e-voting, social networks, online dating and more. www.facetec.com

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Anonybit is a privacy-focused technology platform that provides decentralized solutions for securing personal data, particularly biometric information. Rather than storing sensitive data in centralized repositories, which are vulnerable to breaches, Anonybit uses a distributed architecture that breaks data into smaller encrypted bits and stores them across a network of decentralized nodes. This approach ensures that no single entity has access to the full dataset, enhancing privacy and security, even preventing insider threats. Anonybit is used by leading banks, fintechs and other enterprises for critical biometric identity functions like deduplication and blocklist checks, step up authentication, passwordless login and account recovery https://anonybit.io/

Identity Week aims to be a significant identity industry catalyst. It’s our mission is to help accelerate the move towards a world where trusted identity solutions enable governments and commercial organisations to provide citizens, employees, customers and consumers with a multitude of opportunities to transact in a seamless, yet secure manner. All the while preventing the efforts of those intent on doing harm. https://identityweek.net/

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ID R&D is an innovator of biometric facial liveness, document liveness, and voice biometrics. Ranked #1 by NIST, our patented passive approach to liveness, and specialized detection of voice clones, injection attacks and deepfakes, empowers KYC and authentication systems with fast, accurate and secure biometric verification technologies. Over 140 partners in more than 70 countries are collectively processing hundreds of millions of identity checks per year. ID R&D solutions easily integrate with mobile, web, messaging, smart speakers, set-top boxes, and IoT devices. Learn more: www.idrnd.ai