Biometric identity documents and mobile digital ID were main themes of the week’s top biometrics news, with a new capability in Jumio’s passport-scanning SDK, a major regional digital ID contract for Idemia, and gait recognition being launched to allow mobile developers to layer gait authentication into their applications. The world’s largest digital identity system appears to be shifting towards the use of iris recognition, governments in Africa are moving forward with ID digitization and biometric tax roll projects, and a pair of companies providing biometric selfies as part of their technology have raised a total of $44 million in funding between them.

Another possible step towards digitization of travel documents was announced with the launch of Jumio’s new NFC passport-scanning feature for its identity verification SDK. Adding the new biometric passport support optimizes the onboarding experience and prevents fraud, the company says.

Idemia will supply digital ID systems backed by biometrics to the Arab Economic Union to help digitize Arab economies and support increases in digital government and ecommerce, online banking and advanced security adoption. The first phase of the project is expected to generate more than $200 million for Idemia.

A new passive behavioral biometric technology based on gait recognition has been launched for mobile application developers by UnifyID. CEO John Whaley tells Biometric Update in an email interview that as a passive technology, GaitAuth is easy to layer into a system for adaptive security.

Problems with fingerprint verification due to COVID-19 safety guidance and failure rates among manual laborers are causing India’s government to consider using different biometric modalities for social benefits under Aadhaar. The UIDAI is asking its authentication and KYC partner agencies to deploy iris scanners, and facial recognition testing has begun with banks.

Nigeria’s NIMC is working on digital identity tools, including a mobile app intended to serve as a valid credential, currently in beta testing. Elsewhere in Africa, Mühlbauer is supplying biometric technology for a tax ID system in the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) which the company claims is a world first.

Socure, which recently launched a biometric selfie, ID and liveness checking module for compliant and fraud-preventing identity verification, has announced $35 million in new funding. The company plans to invest in new verticals and talent, and enhance its machine learning capabilities.

Startup Berbix has raised $9 million to support the growth of its identity verification technology, which combines biometrics, in what the founders call in an interview with Biometric Update an “image-based approach,” with a signals and data-aggregating approach. The approach allows the company to catch “factors more” fake IDs than competitors, they say.

PhocusWire has a deeper dive into startup Travizory, which just raised $2 million in funding in the form of a Q+A with the company about its biometric travel platform, its corporate vision, and its team members’ previous involvement with what became IATA’s OneID, and JetBlue and CBP’s biometric boarding procedure.

Fraud related to SIM cards, such as SIM swaps, have been causing major financial damage in the telecom industry, causing mobile operators to turn to biometrics and other technologies to carry out KYC checks, GetID CEO Dmitri Laush writes in a guest post.

ForgeRock recently held a virtual fireside chat with Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on the relationship between identity and trust, how digital identity can power opportunities like open banking, and the streamlined access to government and private services that can be provided by a competitive identity management market. A recap and a replay are provided.

KNOW Identity from One World Identity recaps its latest Digital Forum, summarizing conversations with industry leaders from Evident ID and Yoti on contact tracing and identity in economic reopening and from ID.me and Jumio on “Fool Proofing Remote Education.” Immunity credentials are a long way off, according to Evident ID’s Nathan Rowe, while Jumio and ID.me representatives discussed how to make remote education universally accessible.

Another in a series of patent applications from Fingerprint Cards related to fingerprint biometrics on mobile devices has been published in the United States. Following patent filings related to new sensor types, the latest describes a system for controlling a large fingerprint scanning area, which may be movable.

Ambiq has formed a partnership with Feitian to supply its Apollo3 Thin MCU ultra-low power microprocessors for biometric cards, OTP display cards, and FIDO devices. The biometric payment card made by Feitian with Ambiq and Idex Biometrics technology is already approved by UnionPay.

Clearview AI is being investigated by another data protection authority, with a German regulator ordering the company to produce information on grounds that its use of cookies makes GDPR applicable. If answers are not forthcoming by mid-September, the Hamburg Commissioner could levy hundreds of thousands of Euros in fines.

Police in Lincolnshire, England are planning to deploy a robot with facial recognition and mood and expression analysis, despite the shaky scientific basis of these applications. The project is pending rights and privacy assessments, which could be impacted by the recent ruling against the legality of live facial recognition deployments in South Wales, as the Ada Lovelace Institute’s independent review of UK police’s facial recognition use will be.

Global disruption related to COVID-19 has included significant adoption of artificial intelligence, and further gains are possible, from farming to environmental conservation. Getting the full benefit of AI, however, will require a greater level of transparency to assure consumers that the technology is ethical and trustworthy, Mastercard President of Cyber and Intelligence Solutions Ajay Bhalla points out in an editorial for the World Economic Forum.

Madelyn Johnson and Eliza Campbell at the Middle East Institute’s Cyber Program write about the risk that biometric data collected from refugees and other vulnerable people could fall into the hands of host countries or other parties and exacerbate the dangers they face, with a focus on UNHCR’s programs in the Middle East.

The third wave of ethical AI is about practical mechanisms for addressing power imbalances and producing more just outcomes, Ada Lovelace Institute Director Carly Kind explains in a VentureBeat editorial. “The Ethics Panel to End All Ethics Panels” at CogX earlier this year was in part a response to the 74 sets of ethical principles or guidelines for AI released from 2016 to 2019, as many AI researchers consider how to make the field more just, and how to convince the rest to join them.

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Article Topics

behavioral biometrics  |  biometric cards  |  biometric identification  |  biometric passport  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  facial recognition  |  funding  |  iris recognition  |  patents