This past week FindBiometrics was in Tampa, covering Biometrics UnPlugged and the Global Identity Summit from the ground floor. That didn’t mean it was a week without the regular industry news though, with product launches, partnerships, contract announcements and research reports all making their way onto our radar.
Monday was the second annual Biometrics UnPlugged conference at the Tampa Museum of Art, this year focusing on the topics of mobility, privacy and commerce in the realm of identity management. Speakers Steven Rahman, director of technology and strategy at Samsung, and Philippe de Raet, vice president of Public Sector at Experian, started things off, each with a keynote of their own, and the event was rounded out with a lively panel discussion that set the stage for dialogues that ran throughout the week.
The Global Identity Summit began on Tuesday at the Tampa Convention Center and ran through Thursday. Where as last year the opening focused on the decision to broaden the gathering’s industry scope – changing the name from the Biometric Consortium Conference to Global Identity Summit – this year’s initial keynote set out to redefine identity in 2014.
A major topic of GIS this year was the FBI’s Next Generation Identity program, which first became fully operational just weeks ago. Lockheed Martin celebrated this milestone in identity and law enforcement, announcing that it played a key role in the NGI system’s implementation.
The first keynote on day two of GIS brought with it the announcement of three newly awarded NSTIC pilot programs, one of which belongs to MorphoTrust USA (Safran). MorphoTrust, has been tasked with creating an electronic ID that will allow citizens to access online services.
On the final day of the conference, SpeechPro announced the launch of VoiceKey.WebAccess. The new solution is a multi-factor authentication software that leverages cameras and microphones to combine face and voice recognition for logical access control in web applications.
In the realm of research, two new reports were in the industry news section this week, the first examining the fingerprint biometrics market in India and the second making predictions on when mobile biometric technology is expected to reach maturity.
Cross Match launched a new mobile credential and biometric reader this week called Verifier Sentry. The Android-based device has the capability to act as a standalone reader, able to authenticate a user’s identity with by matching a live scan of her fingerprint to the biometric data held on a submitted credential, but mobility and connectivity bring with them more flexibility. The reader is also able to transmit prints to a remote AFIS in order to be processed, making it ideal for scanning unknown subjects in law enforcement and border control.
This week BIO-key International and NEXT Biometrics announced a strategic hardware and software partnership that will see the former’s fingerprint matching algorithm on the latter’s new low-cost sensors. With this partnership, BIO-key has placed a purchase order for the sensors, which the company will include in its new line of fingerprint scanner devices. According to a brief from Reuters, the order is for 75,000 units.
FaceFirst announced this week that its biometric solutions currently deployed in Panama’s Tocumen International Airport are expanding into the facility’s north terminal. Initially implemented at the airport in 2011, FaceFirst’s facial recognition system provides Tocumen International with the ability to facilitate the capture multiple Interpol suspects as well as national and regional wanted persons.
Suprema furthered its agenda to make biometric access control as accessible as possible for customers, announcing an integration with Milestone video management software. Breaking down barriers even further, the company’s operating partner in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland, ENTERTECH SYSTEMS announced that its BioConnect platform has now been paired with Honeywell’s Pro-Watch security management suite.
Stay posted to FindBiometrics throughout the coming week as we continue to bring you all the most relevant identity management news and continue to unpack some of the larger discussions that happened at GIS and Biometrics UnPlugged. Be sure to follow us on Twitter so you don’t miss a beat.
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September 21, 2014 – by Peter B. Counter
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