Do Robots Dream of Electric Recess? 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:

Digital ID

The United Kingdom’s Digital Identities Programme continues to take shape, with the Government Digital Service now having established two multi-million-dollar contracts with Experian. The news comes shortly after GDS signed two contracts with iProov, a prominent name in selfie onboarding, to aid in the project this summer. Read the full story on Mobile ID World.

Decentralized ID

Anonybit has attained SOC2 and ISO27001 for its pioneering decentralized biometrics platform, which is designed to break down a given biometric template into encrypted shards stored across different servers. Biometric matching is performed against the sum total of the shards, but because they are managed in a decentralized fashion, no single biometric template can be compromised in a hack attack or leak. In announcing the certifications, Anonybit co-founder and CEO Frances Zelazny said that they illustrate that Anonybit is “making every investment to establish and maintain the highest level of security and compliance.” Read our full story.

Biometric Startups

Denver-based biometric wearables startup Cipher Skin has received new investment funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Tribe Capital, and Draper Capital, and has announced the appointment of Meta’s former AR hardware lead, Caitlin Kalinowski, as an advisor, alongside Banner Health M.D. Dr. Ara Feinstein. The news comes shortly after Cipher Skin’s announcement of a data communications partnership with Kno2. Cipher Skin did not disclose financial figures for its latest received investments.

Deployments

BIO-key has announced the deployment of AuthControl Sentry, a multi-factor authentication solution for logical access control, with a healthcare procurement provider based in Saudi Arabia. The deployment was carried out through BIO-key’s EMEA business, which was formed through BIO-key’s acquisition of Swivel Secure Europe earlier this year. The authentication solution is expected to protect about 15,000 “employee and supplier users”, BIO-key said.

Biometric Cards

IDEX Biometrics has entered a partnership with an unnamed semiconductor company to jointly develop biometric smart cards. The companies joint solution will combine IDEX’s TrustedBio fingerprint sensor and software platform with the European semiconductor company’s Secure Element, card operating system, and payment applets. IDEX says the joint solution will eliminate the need for a separate microcontroller ASIC and discrete power management circuits, helping to bring down production costs.

Onboarding

Shopopop, a French startup offering a crowd-sourced delivery service, is using Onfido technology to verify its participating couriers. The platform works with major French retailers including Carrefour, E.Leclerc, and Biocoop, and currently has about 450,000 couriers. While Onfido is known as a prominent provider of selfie-based onboarding technology, the company’s announcement indicated that only its document verification system is being used by Shopopop, and not its biometric technology.

UK-based FinTech startup Griffin has launched a customer onboarding system, the first tool to be launched as part of its API-based Banking-as-a-Service platform. The “Verify” onboarding system is designed to enable customer enrollment through personal computers and mobile devices, and features an unspecified biometric component in the identity verification process. Griffin already has one early client using Verify in Comma, described as an “open banking bulk payments system.”

Biometric Wearables

Real Response, an Australian training company for first responders, has developed a Virtual Reality training system focused on tactical and combat medical training, and featuring the use of biometric wearables. In announcing the Virtual Tactical Combat Casualty Care (vTC3) system, Real Response noted that it uses Garmin smartwatches to monitor participants’ biometrics and “to dynamically alter the virtual scenarios”. The vTC3 systems was developed with the support of “Defence”, the company said, presumably referring to the Australian Defence Force.

Hi, Robot

Administrators at an elementary school in Durango, Colorado, are hoping that a pair of $2,000 robots will help to make special needs students feel more at ease in the classroom. As The Durango Herald reports, the Misty Robot is equipped with facial recognition to let it greet students by name, and it is “nonjudgmental”, which the school district’s director of special education believes will make kids more likely to talk to it when they are stressed.

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September 7, 2022 – by Alex Perala