The Verdict Is In On BIPA’s First Jury Trial: 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:

BIPA Cases

BNSF Railway has lost its legal battle over a Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) lawsuit. The case was the first jury trial of a BIPA case, and the jury has sided with the class of 44,000 truck drivers who alleged that the railway failed to obtain their written consent for its collection of their biometric data, a violation of Illinois’s expansive privacy law. BNSF is now facing a payout of up to $228 million in damages.

Startups

The founder and former Chief Technology Officer of behavioral biometrics pioneer BioCatch, Avi Turgeman, has a new startup. IronVest offers an eponymous “super app” that is designed to protect multiple digital accounts for a given user. Available as a mobile or web app, IronVest uses biometric authentication and masks users’ email addresses, phone numbers, and credit card numbers. Turgeman co-founded the new startup with Chief Technology Officer Kfir Yeshayahu, Chief Marketing Officer Guy Bauman, and Vice President of Product Yaron Dror. The company has come out of stealth mode with its announcement of a $23 million seed funding round led by Accomplice, and featuring contributions from Trust Ventures, Ulysses, Joule Ventures, OurCrowd, and multiple angel investors.

Spren, a biometric fitness tracking startup, has raised $11.3 million in a seed funding round led by Drive by DraftKings. Spren’s software is designed to leverage computer vision through a standard smartphone camera in order to read an end user’s heart and respiration rates as well as oxygen saturation (SpO2). The company is marketing its technology primarily toward other companies, pitching it as an easy solution to incorporate into their own fitness apps.

Crypto/Web3

Humanode has set a date for the launch of its mainnet – crypto-speak for a fully operational blockchain. The Humanode network will go live on November 15. Humanode is notable for its use of biometrically authenticated validators: rather than operating on a Proof of Work model like Bitcoin, in which the blockchain is sustained by participants efforts’ to decode math puzzles, or a Proof of Stake model like Ethereum, in which each participant invests a stake of cryptocurrency to support the blockchain, Humanode’s mainnet will be validated by an initial cohort of a thousand distinct humans, as verified using facial recognition technology from FaceTec. Humanode says the launch of its HMND cryptocurrency will follow soon after the mainnet goes live.

Biometric ID

The United Arab Emirates’ Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Ports Security (ICP) is planning to let UAE residents submit their biometrics for a national ID program through their smartphones. An ICP official made the announcement at this week’s Gitex Global event, explaining that the UAE ICP mobile app will use a selfie-based identity verification process that matches the user’s face to their passport or visa, and will then provide step-by-step instructions on positioning fingers for a mobile-based fingerprint scan. A launch date for the new system has not yet been set.

The Philippines’ Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has given up on waiting for the completion of the country’s biometric national ID project before going ahead with its planned registration of the country’s SIM cards. The Department will instead use government-issued IDs like driver’s licenses and passports for SIM registration. DICT Secretary Ivan Uy acknowledged that linking SIMs to biometrics would have been ideal, but complained that “we are waiting like forever for our digital, National ID, we have to move on.”

The Australian telecom Telstra is floating the idea of using biometric customer authentication as a means of helping to prevent data breaches like that of its rival Optus. Noting that the federal government has been exploring potential “changes in this space”, Telstra CEO Vicky Brady suggested that the regulations requiring telecoms to store customer data for two years make consumers’ data more vulnerable to exposure. “We want to make our principles on retaining customer ID data clear,” she said, “Once we know who you are, and we have an ongoing way of verifying who are you are (for example, through biometrics like face ID or fingerprints that you control), there should be very few reasons to retain your ID data.”

Employee Authentication

The Australian Council of Trade Unions has passed a resolution outlining “key principles” concerning the collection and use of workers’ data by their employers. Among them is a statement that biometric and GPS data “should only be collected where there is no other viable option.” In a statement, ACTU President Michele O’Neil said that employers “are now commonly collecting extremely sensitive data with no restrictions on its use or storage, and no recourse for workers who may wish to access, amend or erase it.”

California’s Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR) has begun enrolling smog check inspectors’ palm biometrics as part of an effort to curb fraud at smog test stations. It’s the result of new regulations that also include a requirement to install webcam monitors at testing stations. The BAR hasn’t yet set an official date by which biometric enrolment will become mandatory, but says that it will provide a 30-day notification period prior to that date.

Biometric Age Verification

Aramark Sports + Entertainment will use biometric age verification technology at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, home of the Spurs basketball team. Facial recognition will be used to match a customer to their government-issued ID at automated cocktail bars. The system will enable patrons to serve themselves alcoholic refreshments.

Consumer Cybersecurity

Google has begun a beta launch of passkeys on its Chrome browser and Android operating system. A joint collaboration between Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the FIDO Alliance, passkeys essentially create a unique password for each of a user’s online accounts, and store the passwords on the user’s smartphone, locked behind biometric authentication. Apple already brought passkeys to its ecosystem with the recent launch of iOS 16; and now Google is trying to get developers onboard as it prepares for a wider rollout later this year.

The White House is planning to convene “companies, associations and government partners” this month to discuss plans for a labelling system for Internet of Things devices. The aim is to offer Americans a clear indication of which devices meet high cybersecurity standards. “We are starting with some of the most common, and often most at-risk, technologies — routers and home cameras — to deliver the most impact, most quickly,” the Biden administration wrote in a Fact Sheet.

Mad Men Biometrics

Comcast Advertising has used biometric technologies to determine that consumers find ads more engaging and memorable when they see them in long-form programming on full-sized TVs, compared to ads in digital media platforms. The company tracked viewers’ eye movements, cardiac rates and sweat secretion to determine how they were engaging with the different kinds of ads.

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October 12, 2022 – by Alex Perala

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