Making Sense of 2020’s Turbulence: This Week’s Top Biometrics Stories

There’s quite a bit of turbulence in this week’s roundup of FindBiometrics’ most popular stories, thanks COVID-related disruption and a big development from another major BIPA lawsuit.

Let’s start with the latter. Readers continued to show a great deal of interest in the recent news that Walmart had reached a $10 million settlement over a class action lawsuit under Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act. The suit was filed on behalf of Walmart’s own employees over the company’s collection of their palm biometrics, offering another illustration of the rocky road that employers now face in their internal use of biometric identification tech:

Walmart Reaches $10M Settlement with Employees in Class Action BIPA Lawsuit

Then there’s the matter of the general disruption caused by COVID-19 over the past year. It’s become a running theme in our in-depth analysis of the results of the FindBiometrics Year in Review survey, and readers showed a continuing interest in results indicating that the pandemic had dramatically shifted the rankings of the top three most exciting biometric modalities of 2020:

Year in Review: COVID Shakes Up the Top Biometric Modality Rankings

Meanwhile, the air travel industry was used to a little turbulence, but nothing like what it saw in 2020. For its part, SITA issued a report that laid out some of the technologies that can help to revive the industry once the pandemic has started to dissipate, with biometrics playing an important role:

SITA Highlights Key Tech to Revive Air Travel Industry

Also popular this week was our latest ID Talk podcast, in which Aware CEO Bob Eckel took some time to look back on the dramatic changes of 2020 in conversation with FindBiometrics President Peter O’Neill. But it wasn’t all COVID disruption: they also delved into issues like liveness detection and multimodality, and looked ahead to what’s next for 2021 and beyond:

Year in Review: Aware CEO Bob Eckel on Biometrics and the Digital Security Arms Race

And on another positive note, facial recognition specialist TECH5 announced that it had received a $2.5 million investment from Yinda Infocomm. That, together with a special licensing agreement, should help to fuel the company’s growth in the China and Japan markets:

TECH5 Targets Asian Market After Receiving $2.5M Yinda Investment

Stay posted to FindBiometrics next week as we continue to bring you the latest news and interviews from the exciting world of biometrics. To see the hottest stories of the week in mobile digital identity, visit our sibling site Mobile ID World.

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January 30, 2021 – by Alex Perala

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