The FTC Wades into the Privacy Discourse: Biometrics News Digest

Welcome to FindBiometrics’ digest of identity industry news. Here’s what you need to know today:

Regulatory Developments

The FTC has issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking concerning the protection of consumers’ privacy online. The notice is the first step in an effort on the Commission’s part to take a greater role in regulating surveillance data security in the digital space. The FTC is requesting comment on a range of relevant topics, including whether it should consider limiting commercial surveillance practices that use biometric technologies.

Fingerprint Sensors

NEXT Biometrics is moving forward with a $2.2 million FAP 20 fingerprint sensor order from an India-based OEM. First announced in February, the order was largely conditional on NEXT passing an undisclosed milestone. With that having been achieved, NEXT has announced that its order agreement is “irrevocable.” Read our full story for more on the deal’s intrigues.

Executive Appointments

Incode has appointed Mitul Parmar as its new Vice President of Product Strategy and Business Development. Parmar comes to the company from a role as VP of Corporate Development for Prove, a competitor in the biometric identity verification space. This is the fifth appointment to Incode’s executive team in three months, signalling the company’s growth trajectory. Last month saw the appointment of Dean Hickman-Smith as Incode’s new Chief Revenue Officer.

NIST FRVT

Rank One Computing has attained some impressive results in recent National Institute of Standards and Technology testing. The company’s facial recognition system attained the top “Mean Accuracy and Efficiency Rank” in the Face Recognition Vendor Test, and demonstrated the highest accuracy among US vendors in the border crossing dataset in particular. ROC was also the best performing US vendor in the FRVT Quality series.

Earnings

BIO-key is reporting a 96 percent year-over-year revenue increase for the second quarter, with revenues coming in at $1.9 million, compared to revenues of $1.0 million in Q2 of 2021. Operating expenses were also up, from $1.9 million a year ago to $2.8 million in the latest quarter. BIO-key’s net result for Q2 of 2022 is a loss of $1.7 million, compared to a net loss of $1.2 million in the same period last year. BIO-key CEO Mike DePasquale said that the company’s PortalGuard IAM solution “continues to gain momentum in higher education, municipal governments, and enterprises”.

One for the Road

Researchers at the University of Naples Federico II have developed a robot bartender that uses face biometrics and speech recognition technology to interact with customers. Dubbed “BRILLO”, for “Bartending Robot for Interactive Long-Lasting Operations”, the robot has been designed to engage in human-like social interactions, in addition to mixing drinks.

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Aug. 12, 2022 – by Alex Perala