New standards related to biometrics and online transactions are coming from NIST, and are behind two of the week’s most-read articles on Biometric Update. In other top stories, SES RFID has reached product sampling for its biometric smart card with the sensor under PVC, and Clearview is set to receive a patent on its method of building a training dataset for its facial recognition algorithms. A thought leadership piece from Jumio on the challenges that come with broad digitization also drew many readers.

NIST is advancing towards the publication of a standard for the quality of images used in face biometrics. The standard is expected to be in place by the end of the year, and Idemia North America’s Donnie Scott says meeting it could end up becoming a requirement for government contracts.

Socure weighed in on the CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into American law last week, praising its emphasis on stronger identity verification and proofing in a blog post. The Act creates a new NSF directorate for machine learning and tasks NIST with establishing standards for identity verification and attribute validation.

Jumio Chief of Digital Identity Philipp Pointner delves into the security and privacy challenges that come along with widespread digitization of IDs in a Biometric Update guest post. He provides organizations with three recommended fundamental building blocks they should put in place for secure digital identity.

Google Wallet has been extended to six more countries, including South Africa, bringing it to a total of 45 where it can be used for contactless payments. Analysts say it could soon also support American mobile driver’s licenses and be used for security checks to get on domestic flights.

A new biometric smart card for access control is demonstrated in a video from SES RFID. The catch is that rather than a visible fingerprint sensor, it uses one under the PVC layer, embedded with the cold lamination technology acquired from Jinco just months ago. MD Martin Scattergood says the company has customers lined up internationally.

The onset of the pandemic raised the question of how well facial recognition would work with masked faces. The latest answer is that even masks custom-made by Privacy International to defeat biometric algorithms may not be successful. India’s Defence Ministry, meanwhile, is working on developing facial recognition technology specifically for identifying people wearing masks and other disguises.

Clearview is in the final stages of patenting a method for building a training dataset for its facial recognition algorithm with data scraped from the internet. Company executives join Biometric Update to discuss how and why the method works, as well as the legal landscape and potential ethical concerns.

Pakistan’s NADRA is engaging with political parties to secure their support in reaching marginalized groups, and get their advice on strengthening digital government initiatives including voter rolls. The meeting was held against a backdrop of threats from supporters of one party to block those from another who harass politicians from using their IDs.

Open finance fintech UBX, which is partially owned by the Philippines’ Social Security System, has launched a suite of solutions intended to help local governments build digital services. UrGovPH provides tools for digital identity and finance, property and business services. The software suite connects local governments to federal agencies and UBX’ private sector partners.

An examination of the role of Smartmatic in Kenya’s election raises some interesting questions, but the central question of whether they will do the intended job appears to have been answered in the affirmative. The newer kits were more expensive than those from the previous supplier, and Smartmatic’s parent may need more independent directors, however.

The role of private sector companies in the provision of legal identity is the focus of the latest episode of our ID16.9 podcast. Biometric Update reporters discuss the players and what they do, and present a brief case study of Cameroon.

Forter Solutions Consultant Karson Kwan reviews the development of enterprise identity management from the introduction of Active Directory through the introduction of multi-factor authentication. He makes the case that passwordless authentication is the next step on the IDM timeline.

Please let us know about any content we should share with the people who work in biometrics and the broader digital identity community in the comments below or through social media.

biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  facial recognition  |  government services  |  identity management  |  identity verification  |  research and development

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