A Fashionable Biometric Space Suit Is Ready for Liftoff – Identity News Digest

Welcome to FindBiometrics’ digest of identity industry news. Here’s what you need to know about the world of digital identity and biometrics today:

Lytx Faces BIPA Lawsuit, While Microsoft Escapes

Lytx, a provider of fleet management solutions for the trucking industry, will have to face a proposed class action lawsuit under Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), a federal judge has ruled. The company was sued alongside Maverick Transportation LLC over its Drivecam dashboard camera, with the plaintiff alleging that the dashcam collects face biometrics in violation of BIPA. Lytx had attempted to deflect the case with an argument that its video analytics services are not used to identify individual drivers; the US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois has now ruled that the plaintiff does not need to plead that biometric data was used for this purpose.

Microsoft, on the other hand, can bring a BIPA lawsuit filed against it to arbitration, thanks to a ruling from the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The lawsuit had concerned Uber’s use of Microsoft’s “Real Time ID Check”, which used facial recognition to verify the identities of drivers on the ride hailing platform. A judge has now determined that an arbitration clause in the contract between Uber and the plaintiffs could be enforced by Microsoft, even though it was a third party to the contract.

Proposed UK Law Threatens End-to-End Encryption, Warn Messaging Companies

Apple, WhatsApp, Signal, and other messaging companies are warning that a proposed “Online Safety Bill” in the United Kingdom would threaten end-to-end encryption. The bill, currently before Parliament for review, would give the UK government’s Office of Communications the ability to scan messages for what it deems to be harmful content, but does not provide explicit protection for encryption. Some experts are also warning that the government’s promise to scan encrypted messages for child abuse content would necessitate the use of facial recognition technology without consent.

PayPal Brings Passkeys to Canada, FIDO Offers Guidance

PayPal is bringing support for passkeys to Canada, announcing that it will be rolled out “over the coming weeks.” Pioneered by Apple, Google, and Microsoft in collaboration with the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium, passkeys essentially store passcodes for various online accounts on a user’s mobile device, and allow them to be unlocked with a biometric scan or a PIN. PayPal was one of the first high-profile companies to enable support for passkeys in the US last fall.

Speaking of which, the FIDO Alliance has published a new set of papers aimed at offering guidance on how passkeys can be used across different enterprise environments. The four papers were developed by FIDO’s Enterprise Deployment Working Group (EDWG), and a fifth, titled “Displacing Password + SMS OTP Authentication with Passkeys”, is planned for publication later this summer. “These papers demystify synced and device-bound passkeys and provide the decision points for how to leverage them across a variety of use cases, whether they are using passwords alone, legacy MFA or FIDO-based solutions today,” explains FIDO Alliance Executive Director Andrew Shikiar.

Canadian Employment Screening Firm Teams With Yoti

Yoti’s remote identity verification technology is now being used by Bretton Management Profiles, a Canadian pre-employment screening company that has been in operation since 1974. With Yoti’s technology, candidates being screened through Bretton Management’s platform can remotely verify who they are by uploading images of their official ID and a selfie, with facial recognition technology matching them together. The partnership points to Yoti’s rising profile as a trusted provider of identity verification technology. The company became one of the United Kingdom’s certified Digital Identity Service Providers last year; in Canada, it’s an active member of the Digital ID and Authentication Council of Canada.

Virgin Galactic to Bring Wearable Biometrics to the Edge of Space

A three-man crew will undertake Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flight to the edge of space on June 29 as part of a scientific mission that will include the collection of biometric data. According to the company, Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei will wear a “smart suit” that incorporates both “Italian fashion style” and biometric sensors meant to record his body’s physiological response to the transition from gravity to microgravity.

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June 28, 2023 – by Alex Perala