BNSF Railway Gets a Biometric Privacy Re-trial – 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:

Jury Should Decide BNSF’s BIPA Penalty: Judge

BNSF Railway is getting a new trial over its violations of Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The railway operator had previously been on the wrong side of one of the most consequential BIPA rulings last fall — the first jury trial under the privacy law, which found BNSF liable for up to $228 million in damages. Now, after hearing an appeal, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly has determined that BNSF did in fact violate the law, but said that a jury should get to decide the severity of the penalty it will have to pay, rather than automatically fine BNSF for each violation of BIPA. It’s all thanks to the placement of the word “may” in BIPA’s stipulations about damages.

TSA Plans to Deploy Facial Recognition at Hundreds of Airports

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is planning to deploy face-scanning technology to about 430 airports in the coming years, with a spokesperson hailing the “extremely promising” results of an initial pilot at 25 airports. The TSA has been testing both 1:1 biometric matching and 1:N matching against a database of known travelers, such as those enrolled in the TSA PreCheck expedited screening program. While biometric screening systems are now present to some extent across all US airports, that’s the result of border control initiative undertaken by US Customs and Border Protection. The TSA has its own budding program, and while officials declined to name its partner in comments to Fast Company, the outlet notes that the TSA has awarded contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to the identity technology firm Dignari.

Fingerprint Cards Names New CEO

Fingerprint Cards has named Adam Philpott as its next CEO, effective September 1st. Philpott comes to FPC after serving as the Chief Revenue Officer of Trellix, which was formed through the merger of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye in the autumn of 2021. Before that, Philpott spent much of his career with Cisco, serving in various roles across Australia and the Asia Pacific region, and eventually becoming the head of its EMEA Security Sales unit. FPC’s previous fully-fledged CEO, Christian Fredrikson, transitioned into an advisory role late last year, after the company faced strong headwinds in the China market. Ted Hansson, previously FPC’s head of Mobile, PC and Access China, has been serving as Acting President in the interim.

NEXT Announces Five-year Deal With India-based Partner

NEXT Biometrics has established a five-year commercial agreement with an undisclosed India-based partner, following an initial Memorandum of Understanding and purchase order announced in late April. The partner is described as having “a substantial existing customer base”, and being involved in authentication through India’s Aadhaar digital ID system. Whereas NEXT Biometrics had previously indicated that the order would be valued at about NOK 15 million, its partner’s minimum order value now amounts to at least NOK 65 million.

German Pharma System Gets Biometric Login Options

Körber Werum, a German provider of manufacturing technology for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, has launched a new biometric authentication system in partnership with Integral Biometrics and Obion (formerly “I.P.A.S.-System”). The PAS-X K.ME-IN system supports the use of single-modality or multimodal biometric authentication to enable user access to Körber Werum’s Werum PAS-X MES platform. New Jersey-based Integral Biometrics is providing its “At-a-Glance” and “At-a-Touch” solutions for iris and fingerprint-based authentication, respectively; while Obion’s “LogOnPlus” solution supports supports the Freevolt S-Key fingerprint-scanning card as well as iris recognition.

BCC Gets Mastercard Approval for Zwipe Pay-based Card

Taiwan-based Beautiful Card Corporation (or “BCC”) has obtained Mastercard approval for a biometric payment card based on the Zwipe Pay platform. Zwipe first unveiled its partnership with BCC in the spring of 2021; BCC has also worked with Fingerprint Cards on a biometric card solution. Commenting on the Mastercard approval, BCC’s Global VP of Sales & Business Development, Shellen Hsu, said the development is “is crucial as we are witnessing a strong interest in our core markets to launch biometric payment cards based on the Zwipe Pay platform.”

Keyless Gets ISO 27001 Certification

London-based Keyless Technologies has attained ISO 27001 certification, the company has announced. It’s the result of an audit by Intercert, which determined that Keyless meets stringent ISO requirements concerning the security of its information security management system. Keyless offers a cryptography solution that irreversibly changes biometric data scanned through an end user’s device, and stores it in the cloud — underscoring the need for the kind of IT security to which ISO 27001 certification attests. “We believe this achievement will further solidify our position as a trusted and reliable partner in the financial services sector,” said Keyless co-founder and CEO Andrea Carmignani.

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July 4, 2023 – by Alex Perala