Biometrics at the Airport, In the Car, and at War: 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:

Alaska Airlines to Expand Self-serve System

Alaska Airlines has announced plans for an expanded rollout of a streamlined check-in and bag drop system that will incorporate biometric identity verification. As TechCrunch reports, the airline has already been trialing the system at select locations, with passengers being invited to check in at home ahead of a flight, or to use single-purpose iPads at the airport to scan their boarding passes and generate bag tags. Alaska Airlines plans to work with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to prepare a biometric passenger authentication system ahead of its wider rollout, suggesting the kind of facial recognition technology already in use by the TSA could have a prominent role to play.

Russian Authorities Use Facial Recognition for Military Draft

Russian authorities are using Moscow’s extensive biometric surveillance network to identify and track men who are eligible for military service. The news comes by way of state-owned news agency TASS, confirming earlier reports of the use of facial recognition in the effort to round up draft dodgers. Authorities have also used Moscow’s biometric surveillance network to arrest dissidents and anti-war protestors. Facial recognition vendors to the Russian government are mostly Russia-based, with the exception of the Belarusian firm Synesis.

Mitsubishi Announces Contactless Driver Monitoring System

Japanese carmaker Mitsubishi has announced a new biometric driver monitoring system that can estimate pulse and monitor blood pressure changes through a special camera. In announcing the solution, the company noted that while there are already camera systems to detect abnormal posture on the part of a driver, it sought to establish a solution that could detect potentiation loss of consciousness and other road safety issues even when a vehicle driver is sitting upright. The new driver monitoring system is based on Mitsubishi’s proprietary “Maisart” AI technology.

Veridas Celebrates NIST Progress

Veridas is celebrating its best result yet in facial recognition testing by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with its technology attaining the fourth-place ranking in one-to-many matching. Tested against a database of 12 million images, Veridas’s solution delivered a false native identification rate of 0.0232 and a false positive identification rate of 0.001. As the company explains, this means that when looking for an individual match across a database of 12 million, its first match will be correct 97.68 percent of the time.

OCR Labs Attains IAL 2 Compliance

OCR Labs has obtained compliance with the NIST 800-63A Enrolment and Identity Proofing guidelines, reaching Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL 2). The company has also reaffirmed its conformance with the ISO 30107-3 Presentation Attack Detection standard, this time through testing with NIST-accredited BixeLab. The latter is required for Australia’s Trusted Digital Identity Framework (TDIF), and OCR Labs says it is the only private firm to have attained TDIF Identity Proofing Level 3 (IP3) or Strong level, the highest accreditation level for an identity solutions provider short of in-person checks.

TECH5 Joins OSIA Initiative

TECH5 has joined the Secure Identity Alliance and its OSIA Initiative, a project aimed at developing an open standard for Application Programming Interfaces that supports seamless interoperability between different identity management solutions and technologies. In a statement, the company explained that its aim is “to participate in the OSIA global qualification program with its matching and digital ID platforms.” The news comes just a few weeks after TECH5’s announcement that it had consolidated all of its biometric matching technology into an overarching platform, dubbed “T5-OmniMatch”.

Daon Announces Cloud-based Identity Orchestration System

Daon has announced a cloud-based version of its renowned IdentityX biometric platform. TrustX was developed with a focus on making it easy for organizations to manage their users’ digital identity lifecycle, offering a no-code, drag-and-drop orchestration tool to create identity and authentication workflows. “Powered by the knowledge and technology from Daon’s 20+ years of innovation in the biometrics industry and leveraging over 160+ related Daon patents, our AI and ML matching engine brings to market a true world-class SaaS identity platform,” said Daon President and Chief Product Officer Ralph Rodriguez.

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April 18, 2023 – by Alex Perala

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