Year in Review: The Industry Speaks, Part 4 – Simplifying Life with Biometrics

The FindBiometrics Year in Review is a massive industry event, collecting the opinions of biometrics industry experts from a wide range of backgrounds. Each year our industry survey checks the industry pulse on the popularity of biometric modalities, the excitement around specific vertical markets, and attitudes toward critical industry issues like privacy, regulation and public perception.

Our 2019 survey collected responses from over 230 industry experts, and our analysis of the results thus far has been enlightening as we set the stage for a new decade of biometrics. To balance out the larger industry discussion, it’s time to take a look at how 2019 was for many of the companies and organizations that participated in the Year in Review.

FindBiometrics reached out to survey respondents, asking for a snapshot of their year, their opinions on industry opportunities, and what we can expect so see from them in 2020. In part four of our multi-part series, we are profiling answers from Precise Biometrics, Accepto, and Verint.

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Stefan Persson, CEO at Precise Biometrics 

What was your company’s biggest accomplishment in 2019?

The product we have developed – Precise YOUNiQ – means that access is convenient, quick and secure, every time. Onboarding is done digitally by the individual who just needs to take a selfie, then when  arriving at the facility, the entrance camera will live video stream the visitor approaching. As the system recognizes and verifies the individual with their stored selfie, the door opens automatically with no need to stand and wait for facial recognition to take place.  There are no physical cards or other tokens to remember, lose or be stolen.

Precise YOUNiQ is available for access and ID and we have been running several successful proof of concept pilots also resulting in new collaborations.  As part of our transformation we’ve also changed our strategy around how we communicate. In the past we’ve focused on communicating about the technology and algorithms for biometrics but now we’re moving to focus on the end customer and the real life problems we are solving. We’re talking about why everyday life is complicated and why not make it simple instead? Through a range of biometric modalities, the body can be utilized for convenience and security, independent of who you are, where you are and what you do – you are your own key.

What is the greatest opportunity facing the biometrics industry?

Convenience and security are now of equal importance. Digital Identity will need to be owned and controlled by individuals themselves. Biometric technology therefore has an important opportunity to enable this through robust solutions and innovative approaches that keep this requirement at the heart of technology design. This is particularly important when thinking about how to meet regulation and legal frameworks for the use of biometric technology in commercial applications. This is an opportunity for the wider industry since we experts can drive best practice and deliver great results that work for everyone

What does your company have in store for 2020?

2019 was a year of pilots and we expect to see more activity in this space entering a more commercial phase 2020. We are looking forward to continuing the successful path we are on and continuing to develop and innovate our products and offerings.

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Shahrokh Shahidzadeh, CEO at Acceptto,

What was your company’s biggest accomplishment in 2019?

In 2019, we received numerous certifications in the span of four months: we became FIDO2 certified, verified Citrix Ready, and extended our offering with Central Authentication Service (CAS) Single Sign On (SSO) integration. All of this together is just the cherry on top of Acceptto being the first solution to offer a no-password authentication process through behavioral continuous authentication solution, detecting anomalies – even post-authorization – and allowing organizations to track and monitor application behavior at runtime.

That’s not all – Acceptto was also selected as a prestigious 2019 SINET 16 Innovator award winner. SINET, a prestigious cybersecurity organization, evaluated hundreds of emerging cybersecurity companies from eighteen countries and selected the 16 most innovative companies. Being recognized as a SINET 16 Innovator is a testament to our continued commitment to eliminating reliance on such weak and outdated controls and instead continuously analyze behaviors and definitively verify legitimate user identity access across cloud, mobile, web and IoT devices, even post-authentication.

What is the greatest opportunity facing the biometrics industry?

Biometrics can now be used to identify you in a more secure manner, even more secure than simply using just your face or thumbprint. By using your behavior, along with your specific biometrics, we can create a more secure form of identification. Your entire behavior, including biometrics, can now become your biobehavioral identity.

What does your company have in store for 2020?

In 2020, Acceptto will accelerate the continued paradigm shift away from traditional passwords and binary authentication such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and two-factor authentication (2FA). We are tirelessly working towards what artificial intelligence and machine learning (AIML) will bring to create and manage an immutable digital identity. New AIML authentication technologies that continuously protect pre-, during, and post authorization while leveraging individual behaviors in a secure and private manner will become mainstream. In 2020, we will see forward thinking CFOs and CISOs looking to augment the Zero Trust rhetoric and a transition to the Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust Assessment (CARTA) model. Those early adopters will be in search of not only a context-aware risk-based authentication solution, but also one that processes post-authorization risks, collects actionable intelligence at runtime. Acceptto will be there to answer their call.

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Dan Spohrer, Vice President of Product Strategy at Verint

What was your company’s biggest accomplishment in 2019?

As a leader in speech processing Verint continues to invest in speed and accuracy of voice analysis. As part of this effort, Verint has made great advancements in its own voice biometrics by leveraging deep neural networks (DNN) technology. Verint’s solution analyzes the voice of the caller into the contact center in real-time and both authenticates the caller based on matching the current voice to the voiceprint on record for that individual, as well as screening that caller’s voice against a list of preidentified fraudulent callers’ voiceprints. As a result of this advancement in voice technology the “time to voice detection” has improved by more than 50 percent for both of these processes, while at the same time the level of accuracy has also improved.

What is the greatest opportunity facing the biometrics industry?

Biometrics not only provides better security, but it also benefits the user with a more personalized experience. When used in a contact center setting, by eliminating the security screening process that starts every call means that the agent can engage the caller more immediately and focus first and foremost on addressing their reason for calling, while the authentication process works seamlessly behind the scenes.   

What does your company have in store for 2020? 

Verint is committed to making voice biometrics more readily available to contact centers who are committed to improving security and providing better customer engagement. Verint has recently made its voice biometrics-based Identity Authentication and Fraud solution available to all customers through the cloud. This means organizations can now enable Verint’s security solution with faster time to value and more flexible operational models.

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Stay tuned to FindBiometrics as we continue to highlight the participants of our 17th Annual Year in Review.

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February 14, 2020 – The FindBiometrics Editorial Team