Facial Recognition Gets Expelled in New York Schools – 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:

EU Members Add Funding Support to Interpol’s ‘Predictive Analytics’ Platform

Certain members of the European Union are now helping to fund an advanced analytical platform being built by Interpol, the global policing organization. Dubbed “INSIGHT”, the platform is meant to apply predictive analytics to an array of data collected by police organizations, including biometric data. The US State Department has so far committed over $12 million to INSIGHT’s development, and an Interpol spokesperson has now confirmed to Statewatch that European allies are providing funding too, though the individual countries involved were not named. Interpol’s Secretary General, Jürgen Stock, said at an event last year that the organization was working on establishing new biometric matching capabilities for the system.

New York Bans Facial Recognition in Schools

New York’s Education Commissioner, Betty Rosa, has issued a ban on the use of facial recognition in the state’s schools. The move comes after the publication of a study undertaken by the New York State Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) this past summer, which concluded that the technology’s risks may outweigh its benefits. The report also noted that whereas facial recognition systems tend to be deployed with the aim of identifying non-students, research suggests that about 70 percent of school shooters tend to be enrolled students. The ban applies only to facial recognition, leaving the door open for school deployments of other biometric technologies.

Facial Recognition Comes to the Australian Open

Administrators at Melbourne’s AAMI Park have implemented facial recognition technology to flag individuals who have been banned from the stadium and deny them entry. The decision comes after an incident after a soccer match last December in which over 150 spectators stormed a soccer field, resulting in injuries to a goalkeeper, a referee, a cameraman, and two security guards. In addition to hosting soccer matches, AAMI Park is also the home of the Australian Open, one of the big four Grand Slam events in tennis.

Congressional Committee Hears Case for Biometric PAD in Fight Against Fraud

ID.me made the case for using sophisticated biometric identity verification to verify citizens interacting with government services at a congressional committee hearing this week. The House Committee on Small Businesses heard testimony on fraud related to pandemic loans, with Florida Representative Aaron Bean displaying images of dolls and masks that were used in some applicants’ photos. ID.me’s Senior Director of Fraud Investigations and Operations, J.T. Taylor, testified that his firm’s Presentation Attack Detection technology could have flagged those instances of fraud. “The way that it does that is it’s looking for depth cues as well as pixelation,” he explained.

Airside, Vision-Box to Bring Passenger Screening Tech to Curaçao

Government authorities in Curaçao and Curaçao Airport Holding have partnered with Airside and Vision-Box to develop a “mobile-based, pre-enrollment border crossing system.” The news comes after the launch of Alaska Airlines’ mobile passenger identity app, developed by Airside and leveraging facial recognition technology from its parent company, Onfido. That solution essentially gave travelers a virtual version of their passport, stored on their personal device. The solution planned for Curaçao sounds much the same, enabling travelers to share their information with authorities ahead of departure, and speeding up their processing upon arrival. What’s more, it will extend it to foreign nationals, which the parties involved are calling a world-first.

TECH5 Attains Compliance With UK’s DIATF

TECH5 has obtained a Certificate of Conformity with the requirements of the United Kingdom Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework, which is meant to promote the country’s digital identity ecosystem and the use of digital credentials for identity verification. For TECH5, the Certificate of Conformity means that its T5-AirSnap solutions for contactless face and fingerprint capture can be used by official Identity Service Providers (IDSPs) operating under the Framework. “The UK is one of the key markets for us, where TECH5 has a solid network of partners and a growing list of customers,” says TECH5’s VP of Sales and Business Development for Europe, Andy Gray. “We are looking forward to continue bringing value and our best-in-class technologies to the United Kingdom.”

HID, Certify Health Team Up On Biometric Patient Engagement

HID Global and Certify Health have jointly developed a biometric patient engagement solution for the healthcare industry. Their joint solution combines HID’s U.Are.U Camera Identification System, which features facial recognition technology, with Certify Care, a patient management system that supports onboarding, communications, and appointment scheduling, among other features. This isn’t Certify Health’s first foray into patient biometrics; the company has previously delivered face-based patient identification systems to hospitals in Washington, DC and Pennsylvania. Its joint solution with HID will be debuted at the Becker’s HIT Conference in Chicago, which runs October 3-6.

Aware, Inc. Launches Partner Program

Aware, Inc. has launched a new partner program, inviting technology providers to join up as Value-Added Resellers, consulting partners, or technology partners. Aware CRO Craig Herman explains that organizations of all sizes are recognizing that biometric authentication can help them stand out, adding, “This is creating a large market demand, which we will meet by equipping technology providers with the power to offer biometrics to more organizations on a global scale.” The co-founder of one early partner, Mustafa Bilbeisi, attests that joining the program “helps us ensure our users’ utmost confidence in the legitimacy of their documents, virtually eliminating the possibility of document fraud while maintaining superior speed and convenience.”

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September 28, 2023 by Alex Perala