Headsets to Make You Pay, Play… and Puke

Welcome to FindBiometrics’ digest of identity industry news. Here’s what you need to know about the world of digital identity and biometrics today:

Strategic Partnerships

Civix, a New Orleans-based provider of airport IT solutions, has partnered with Zwipe on a biometric access control card, which it is now offering through its Aviation Secure Credentials portfolio. The biometric ASC Access cards feature an embedded fingerprint sensor, and are fully compatible with traditional NFC card readers. “Civix is a highly reputed system integrator and solution provider to the airport industry, and we are proud to include our biometric smart card technology to its suite of solutions improving airport security,” commented Zwipe CEO Robert Puskaric.

A new partnership between Chatbooks, a Utah-based photo memory book company, and the Utah Jazz basketball team will see facial recognition used to provide Utah Jazz fans with personalized souvenirs of the games they watch in person. Chatbooks will use the biometric technology to automatically collect the posed and candid photos of those who decide to use this ‘Fan Fame’ feature of the Utah Jazz mobile app, and will send the personalized photo collection to their phones on the very same evening that they attend a given game.

FIDO Alliance

Oppo, the China-based smartphone brand, has become a member of the FIDO Alliance, joining major tech companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google. The development comes as FIDO enjoys heightened attention in the mobile sector thanks to its critical role in Apple’s and Google’s new ‘passkey’ account login feature. “In the future, users can use OPPO smartphones to work as a ‘passkey’ to log in to different services across browsers, apps, and platforms, which helps create a seamless connected experience,” FIDO noted in a statement announcing OPPO’s membership.

Biometric Headsets

Apple’s VR headset will feature an iris recognition system for user authentication, according to a report from The Information. Citing two unnamed individuals who worked on the device, the report says that the headset’s ‘Iris ID’ system would be used to authorize payments, and to automatically log into a given user’s online accounts when the user puts on the headset. The device is expected to be unveiled in 2023, and to have a price tag in the range of $2,000-3,000.

Meta’s VR headset, meanwhile, will feature gaze-tracking technology that is likely to be used to measure users’ engagement with advertising content. As Gizmodo reports, Meta’s announcement of its $1,500 Meta Quest Pro came along with an updated “Eye Tracking Privacy Notice” in which Meta explained that it will use eye-tracking data to help “personalise your experiences and improve Meta Quest.” That language is typically used as a disclaimer when user data will be used for targeted ads, the report notes.

The Army’s own Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) headset features sophisticated technologies including facial recognition, but is so uncomfortable that it’s making soldiers nauseous, according to an internal report obtained by Bloomberg News. Soldiers have been reporting other symptoms as well, including neck pain, headaches, and eye strain; and the Pentagon’s Director, Operation Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) noted in its evaluation that it’s “experiencing too many failures of essential functions.” The IVAS is purpose-built on the foundation of Microsoft’s Hololens 2 Augment Reality headset.

Financial Fraud

Early Warning is pushing back against Senator Elizabeth Warren’s claims of fraud on its Zelle payments platform. Senator Warren had sent a letter to Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf asserting, among other things, that fraud rates on the Zelle platform, which is used by his organization, are 2.5 times higher than they were in 2019. A bank spokesperson responded that Zelle transactions have doubled over the past three years, and suggested that Warren’s figures were not calculated “on a comparable basis” and are therefore “misleading and inaccurate.” Early Warning has now concurred, adding that “reported fraud and scams represent less than 0.1% of all transactions” on the Zelle network.

BIPA Cases

Papa John’s has become the latest major brand to face a lawsuit under Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The restaurant chain is accused of collecting the voice biometrics of customers who used its PapaCall automated voice-ordering system without providing the proper disclosures, and without obtaining customers’ explicit consent, thereby violating BIPA. The plaintiff, Nicholas Pope, has requested a jury trial for the case.

Biometric Border Control

South Africa’s Shadow Minister of Tourism, Manny de Freitas, is complaining that a trial of a biometric traveler screening system is hurting the country’s image. In a statement, the Minister asserts that tourists arriving in the country through the OR Tambo International Airport are waiting an average of three hours at customs due to a pilot of a ‘Biometric Movement Control System’, which he says has “effectively gone ‘live'” without having been properly tested.

The United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been spending about $245,000 a day on SmartLINK phones with a selfie-based compliance reporting feature for illegal aliens, according to the agency’s year-to-date report for fiscal 2022. The phone system is part of ICE’s ‘Alternatives to Detention Program’, which allows illegal aliens to be released from detention on the condition that they comply with self-reporting systems concerning their whereabouts. ICE has also been spending about $3,500 a day on a voice biometrics-based telephonic reporting system.

Digital ID

The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs has approved a proposed legislative amendment that would establish guarantees of pseudonymity for end users as part of the legal framework for the EU’s digital identity wallet. The proposed amendment would also allow users to opt out of cloud storage of digital IDs. Read the full story on Mobile ID World.

Identify the Right?

An anti-fascist group called Ignite the Right has used facial recognition technology to help identify Massachusetts police officer John Donnelly as an organizer of the deadly Unite the Right white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Officer Donnelly’s current police chief, Robert Rufo, has said that he will move to decertify Donnelly if his involvement as an organizer of the rally is confirmed through an internal investigation.

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October 14, 2022 – by Alex Perala

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