Big News From Biometric Startups: 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:

Mexican Biometric KYC Startup Raises $4.1M

Mexico-based startup Trully has raised $4.1 million in a seed funding round led by Costanoa Ventures and featuring contributions from Belvo co-founder and CEO Pablo Viguera and Juan Pablo Ortega, the co-founder of Rappi and CEO of Yuno. Trully is developing a Know Your Customer solution based on facial recognition. The company says that it will use the funding to continue building its biometric platform, recruit talent, and fuel growth in the Mexico and Latin America markets.

Anonybit Gets FIDO Certification

Anonybit has received FIDO certification for its pioneering decentralized biometrics platform. Dubbed ‘Genie’, the solution is designed to capture biometrics at the time of onboarding, break the biometric template into discrete ‘shards’, and store them in a decentralized fashion so as to make a successful hack attack virtually impossible. The FIDO certification comes after Anonybit obtained SOC2 and ISO27001 certifications for its platform at the end of summer.

TDK Announces CEO Change for Sensor Business

TDK has announced a succession plan for its InvenSense subsidiary: the current CEO, Amir Panush, will be replaced by Omar Abed on January 1, 2023. In addition to serving as CEO of InvenSense, Abed will act as General Manager of TDK Corporation’s MEMS Sensors Business Group. InvenSense specializes in solutions that combine Micro Electrical Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensors with proprietary algorithms and firmware to produce highly accurate smart sensor solutions with applications spanning motion tracking, ultrasonic sensing, and fingerprint biometrics, among others.

Deloitte Rankings Show Trulioo’s Ascent

Vancouver-based Trulioo has ranked in 249th place in the Deloitte North America Technology Fast 500, a ranking of fast-growing companies operating in the areas of technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, fintech, and energy; and it has ranked third in the Canada’s Enterprise Fast 15 segment of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 program, which is focused on enterprise-level companies in tech, media, and telecommunications and is based on revenue growth over the past four years. Known for an identity verification platform that draws on a range of data sources and features facial recognition technology, Trulioo saw revenue growth of 590 percent over that period.

World Cup to See Naked Payments Trials

Three Flat White Specialty Coffee branches in venues for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar will accept biometric payments based on facial recognition that do not require the consumer to present a payment card, cash, mobile device, or any other physical token. The naked payments deployment will represent a potentially significant marketing opportunity for PopID, the California-based startup that is providing the biometric technology in partnership with Visa and Qatar National Bank. The startup is also involved in Mastercard’s Biometric Checkout Program.

Daon Delivers Selfie Onboarding for Irish Postal Service

Ireland’s An Post postal service is enabling new customers to remotely activate accounts using selfie onboarding technology from Daon. An Post is using the latter’s IdentityX platform to let customers register by submitting images of their official ID together with a selfie; IdentityX then uses facial recognition to match them. “Our goal is to provide high levels of customer satisfaction by ensuring a great user experience, while doing as much as we can to protect customers and An Post from fraudsters,” explained An Post Chief Digital & Technology Officer Des Morley.

Nigerians Find Fault in Biometric Voter Deduplication

Nigerians are reporting numerous instances of duplicate records in the country’s public register of voters even after the country’s Independent National Electoral Commission used an Automated Biometric Identification System to weed out such duplicates. Responding to public outrage, INEC’s Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye, emphasized that the purpose of the public register was to get input from Nigerians about any potential errors, and that officials expect the public to “assist the commission to point out these things so that the commission can further clean up the register.”

NSW to Pilot Selfie Onboarding for Digital ID

New South Wales’ digital ID program will pilot “photo verification technology”, according to an announcement from the office of the Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, Victor Dominello. The news comes after the government agency Service NSW issued an RFI this time last year concerning the integration of facial recognition technology into public-facing channels. “The NSW Digital ID program will provide customers with the ability to prove their identity through a secure digital channel when transacting with government, businesses or non-government organisations,” Minister Dominello explained, noting that “no biometric or photo data will be store” once an end user has been verified.

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November 17, 2022 – by Alex Perala