Another Opportunity for Biometrics Vendors in Liberia?

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

Liberia to Issue Biometric Residence Permits to Foreigners

The Liberian government plans to issue biometric residence permits to foreign nationals. In announcing the project, Minister of Justice Frank Musah Dean framed it as part of a broader modernization effort, while Liberian Immigration Service Commissioner General Robert W. Budy suggested it would increase his agency’s annual revenues from $5 million to $7 million. Budy said his agency was working with Contec Global Limited, a Nigerian technology company. Contec says it is “going beyond geographical and political borders in biometric technology, agriculture, transportation, mobile and financial technology, telecommunication, and green energy,” but the depth of its expertise in biometrics may become an important question in the wake of the scandal-plagued saga of the National Elections Commission’s efforts to implement a biometric voter verification system.

UK ICO Publishes Final Guidance On Employee Privacy

The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office has published the final version of its guidance on employee monitoring in the workplace. Broadly speaking, the guidance calls for reasonable restraint on the part of employers. With respect to biometric data specifically, it calls on employers to consider alternatives to biometrics in the context of attendance tracking, and requires that employers perform a data protection impact assessment whenever implementing biometrics to identify an individual.

Moscow Metro Links ‘Muscovite’ ID Cards to Biometric Payments

Administrators of the Moscow Metro urban transit network are piloting an upgrade to its biometric payment system, FacePay, that would allow eligible individuals to link their ‘Muscovite’ ID card to their biometric profile. This would enable transit riders to automatically get reduced fares to which they’re entitled when using the face-scanning payment system. As NFCW reports, authorities are also testing the use of Russia’s Central Bank Digital Currency for fare payments.

Plurilock Gets USPTO Notice of Allowance

Vancouver-based Plurilock has received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a filing entitled “Side-Channel Communication Reconciliation of Biometric Timing Data for User Authentication During Remote Desktop Sessions”. The patent relates to Plurilock’s Defend technology and its support for authentication based on behavioral biometrics in remote and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure environments. “The expansion of our intellectual property remains a key priority for us and we aim to continue developing new technology to expand our pipeline of advanced AI-driven cybersecurity solutions,” said CEO Ian L. Paterson. The news comes after Plurilock launched a tool this summer that is meant to stop enterprise workers from sharing sensitive information with AI chatbots.

IDEMIA Wins Three-Year ID Validation Contract With CentralAMS

IDEMIA Identity and Security has won a three-year contract to provide identity and verification services to CentralAMS (CAMS), a company that provides payments, KYC, and AML solutions, including biometric ID validation, for the gaming industry. CentralAMS is adding IDEMIA’s ID&V and state DMV system of record check services to its Identity Orchestration Platform. CEO Mark Lipparelli explains that his company selected IDEMIA for “its decades-long experience in providing secure identity credentials, such as driver’s licenses, passports, and government identification cards, and its unique ability to help us securely validate an individual’s biographic and biometric attributes against state and national identity databases as a root of trust.”

Aware Takes to FATE Leaderboard

Aware, Inc. says it has attained the top ranking in security for the “TYPE 4” presentation attack in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE) program. FATE is one of two branches of NIST’s evaluation programs for face biometrics technology, after the institution split its previous FRVT program into two tracks at the end of summer. (The other, “Face Recognition Technology Evaluation”, is focused on image processing and analysis.) In order to encourage broad effectiveness in Presentation Attack Detection, NIST has not disclosed the nine different types of Presentation Attacks assessed in FATE testing.

Innovatrics Facial Recognition Comes to Locker Management System

Innovatrics has brought its facial recognition technology to Netherlands-based Nedap’s AEOS Locker Management system. The upgraded locker system allows users to access their designated lockers with a face scan, without any need for the use of keys, fobs, or PIN entry. In a statement announcing the integration, Nedap Regional Partner Manager Grzegorz Kosik highlighted that both companies’ solutions are interoperable with third-party systems, saying this “compatibility is one of the driving factors behind the seamless integration of Innovatrics’ facial recognition technology into the AEOS Locker Management system.”

Singapore’s SendQuick Embraces Yoti Digital IDs

SendQuick, a Singapore-based provider of mobile messaging solutions for the enterprise, has integrated Yoti’s digital ID technology into Conexa, its remote access management platform. Conexa already supported the use of SMS One-Time Passwords for authentication, as well as YubiKey security keys and Singpass, Singapore’s digital ID system. Yoti adds support for another digital ID to the mix, backed by Yoti’s face-scanning technology, which can match an end user to their photo ID. In announcing the integration, SendQuick asserted that Yoti has 13 million users across 190 countries, making the case for businesses to enable authentication through its digital ID.

AI-Focused Knitwear Hits US Market

Cap_able, an Italy-based company selling clothing that it says is designed to confuse AI systems, is bringing its knitwear to the US market through a partnership with the Philadelphia boutique Trunc. The company says that extensive testing has found that individuals wearing its clothes were not recognized by YOLO, an object detection system. But it also insists that its main objective is to raise awareness about privacy, AI, and biometric data. Prices for its Manifesto Collection garments start at close to $400.

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October 12, 2023 – by Alex Perala