Liveness, Lawsuits, and TikTok: Biometrics News Digest

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

Liveness Detection

iProov’s Genuine Presence Assurance technology has received Level of Assurance High certification under the eIDAS regulation, opening further opportunities to the company as it seeks to become a prominent tech vendor in the European Union Digital Wallet program. Read our full story on the development.

Clearview AI has unveiled its own Presentation Attack Detection system, designed to detect spoofing attempts using paper printouts, video replays, or sophisticated masks. The PAD solution is part of “Clearview Consent”, a commercial API solution aimed at the private sector that Clearview officially launched in May, having by then become notorious for its law enforcement-focused facial recognition system. In announcing the PAD solution, Clearview emphasized that its API is more affordable than Amazon Rekognition and Microsoft Azure.

Authentication

IDEX Biometrics has received what it described as the largest single order in the company history. Whereas the company has been focused on the commercialization of the biometric payment cards market, the new fingerprint sensor technology order concerns a digital authentication application. IDEX did not name its new client, but described it as “a large US company with a global footprint.”

Naked Payments

Amazon will launch its biometric checkout solution, Amazon One, at 65 Whole Foods locations in California. By connecting a customer’s palm biometrics to their payment account, Amazon One enables cashless and cardless payments with a wave of the hand. It has already been deployed at Whole Foods stores in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Austin, as well as select Amazon Fresh, Go, and Style stores.

BIPA

A class action lawsuit has been filed against ID.me under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The lawsuit alleges that ID.me failed to provide a biometric data retention policy that is compliant with BIPA; ID.me’s official policy would have allowed the company to store biometric data for up to 7.5 years, whereas BIPA limits the storage of biometric data to three years.

National Security / TikTok

The US House of Representatives Chief Administrative Officer has issued a memo advising lawmakers not to download or use TikTok, citing concerns over the social media app’s collection of biometrics and other sensitive data. The CAO Office of CyberSecurity deemed TikTok “a high-risk to users due to its lack of transparency in how it protects customer data, its requirement of excessive permissions, and the potential security risks involved with its use.” The memo comes after the FCC asked Google and Apple to remove the app from their online stores, calling it a national security risk.

Earnings

Selfie onboarding specialist Mitek reported a 24 percent jump in revenues, year-over-year. Revenues for the second quarter came in at just over $39 million, compared to revenues of just under $31.8 million a year ago. Costs were also up, rising from about $26 million in Q2 of 2021 to about $38 million in the latest quarter. Mitek’s unaudited net result is a loss of about $852,000, compared to a net income of just under $3 million a year ago.

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August 11, 2022 – by Alex Perala