Michiganders to Pay for Gin and Juice with Biometrics at Upcoming Snoop Dogg Concert: 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:

FTC to Issue Policy Statement On Biometric Data

The Federal Trade Commission will vote on a policy statement next week concerning businesses’ use of biometric data and potential violations of Section 5 of the FTC Act, which concerns unfair or deceptive business practices. The vote will take place during an open meeting on May 18, with members of the public invited to submit comments up to May 16.

AuthID Reports Q1 Results

AuthID has issued an update for first quarter of 2023, reporting revenues of $0.04 million, compared to revenues of $0.2 million in Q1 of 2022. The company says that the reduction was due primarily to the discontinuation of a legacy product in April of last year. Its loss climbed from $5.1 million a year ago to $5.2 million in the latest quarter, but adjusted EBITDA improved from a loss of $2.8 million in Q1 last year to an EBITDA loss of $2.2 million in the latest quarter. The report comes in the wake of a massive corporate overhaul in March that saw multiple board changes and the appointment of Rhon Daguro as authID’s new CEO.

IDEX Integrates STMicroelectronics Tech

IDEX Biometrics has incorporated STMicroelectronics’ Secure Element technology into its biometric smart card platform, including the ST3IN600 secure microcontroller. In announcing the development, the companies noted that ST’s Secure Element is “fully integrated” with its “STPay-Topaz-Bio Operating System, which obtained EMVCo certification last November. The news comes in the same week that IDEX announced a new partnership with yet another Turkey-based firm in its effort to promote and commercialize biometric payment cards.

FIDO Survey Tracks Growing Interest In Passkeys

About 57 percent of US consumers expressed interest in using passkeys to replace passwords, according to new survey data from the FIDO Alliance. According to FIDO Executive Director and CMO Andrew Shikiar, that points to rapidly growing excitement, given that only 39 percent of survey respondents said they were familiar with the passkey concept in a FIDO survey released last October. Passkeys essentially store complex passcodes for a user’s various online accounts on their mobile device, locking them behind a PIN or biometric scan. Google recently launched passkey support for its own Account login process, garnering considerable media attention in the process.

Another Crypto Exchange Deploys iDenfy Onboarding

iDenfy’s identity verification technology is now being used by Coinmerce, a Dutch cryptocurrency exchange platform. The partnership enables Coinmerce to verify customers by comparing their selfie biometrics to images of their official ID, with 3D liveness detection further helping to guard against any potential fraud attempts. iDenfy has been expanding its presence in the crypto space, having delivered its onboarding technology to the Lithuanian crypto exchange GOAT Finance earlier this year.

Biometric Bar Services Comes to Michigan Venue

Michigan’s Pine Knob Music Theatre will see the deployment of a biometric payments system for drink ordering during its newly announced concert season. Music lovers attending shows from the likes of Snoop Dogg and the Dave Matthews Band will have the opportunity to order a drink with a face scan using the TenderBar system, which was previously deployed at last fall’s Formula 1 Aramco United States Grand Prix.

Trua Launches Digital ID Solution

Viriginia-based Trua has branched off from parent firm Endera, a risk management software specialist that has been in operation for over two decades, and launched its flagship product, TruaID. The solution is aimed at offering an all-in-one identity hub, collecting information about end users including their Social Security number and the details of their birth certificate and driver’s license. Trua says the solution was built on blockchain ledger technology, and that it supports “high-fidelity” facial recognition capabilities as well as multi-factor authentication. Read the full story on Mobile ID World.

SAS to Train Turtle Recognition Algorithm

North Carolina-based business analytics specialist SAS has announced a partnership with UNC Center for Galapagos Studies (CGS) that will see the development of a facial recognition system for turtles. The work will be crowd-driven, with the organizations inviting “citizen scientists” to use a mobile app called “ConserVision” to match images of turtles’ facial markings in order to train SAS’s computer vision model. Ultimately the turtle recognition system will be used to track turtles’ health and migratory patterns, helping research and conservation efforts.

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May 12, 2023 – by Alex Perala