Brivas has announced its acquisition of the intellectual property portfolio of Christchurch, New Zealand-based 3Fish Ltd. The deal, which centers on patents for biometric gesture recognition, will be used by Brivas to develop a new “Proof of Human” protocol based on its “Augmented Authentication” technology.
The primary patent in the portfolio is for an “Automated Identity Assessment Method and System”. This technology functions by issuing a sequence of unpredictable prompts to perform visible actions. A user’s response to these challenges (for example, a specific, randomized gesture) is video-recorded and assessed by a gesture recognition system. Brivas will power this protocol with its own “Augmented Authentication” technology, which utilizes GPU-accelerated sensor fusion of thermal maps, motion pulses, and micro-gestures.
This acquisition signals a significant evolution in liveness detection, or Presentation Attack Detection (PAD). Standard liveness checks, such as “smile” or “turn head,” are predictable and are becoming increasingly vulnerable to spoofing by generative AI and real-time deepfakes. The key to the 3Fish IP is the unpredictable prompts. A random, high-entropy challenge is trivial for a live human but currently impossible for a pre-rendered deepfake or injection attack to perform.
The “Proof of Human” protocol is explicitly designed to block synthetic IDs and deepfakes. This technology has applications far beyond standard identity verification (KYC). It addresses the more foundational challenge of confirming that a user is a live human, not who they are. This is a critical building block for combating AI-driven botnets, preventing Sybil attacks in Web3, and establishing a verification layer for a future where AI agents and humans coexist online.
Sources: U.S. Patent No. 10,587,601 (Automated identity assessment method and system), U.S. Patent No. 9,137,246 (legal events)
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
