• FAA to require photos, but no biometric info, on pilot's licenses

    The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has proposed that all pilot certificates include a photo of the licensee, but one lawmaker wants to know why the passport-size cards will not include biometric identification five years after Congress passed a law requiring such unique identifiers

  • Salmat offers voice biometrics to mid-market

    A 2009 Identity Verification Study conducted by callcenters.net highlighted that the most preferred method of verifying identity among consumers was biometric voice identification; Aussie company Salmat has launched a suite of speech recognition and voice biometric solutions designed specifically for mid-market companies

  • Suprema to provides palm-print scanners to Poland, Lithuania

    Korean company Suprema win contracts to equip the Polish and Lithuanian police forces with palm-print live scanners; the contracts are part of EU-funded effort to upgrade the two countries’ criminal identification methods so these methods could be integrated with the European Union’s Schengen Visa Information System (VIS) project

  • Manchester Airport conducts distance biometrics trial

    Manchester Airport begins a 2-week trial of a system which can recognize an individual’s iris while they walk around; the system might allow international transfer passengers to mix with domestic passengers in a departure lounge because they can be securely identified before boarding their flight

  • NYPD begins iris scanning of crime suspects

    The New York Police Department bought 21 iris scanning systems for $24,000 each; the scanners are used to take photographs of the irises of crime suspects along with their fingerprints and mug shots

  • New biometric system harder to fool than other approaches

    Each of us has a unique pattern of eye movements; an Israeli company developed a new biometric security system which exploits this for a simple, hard-to-fool approach; the system tracks the way a person’s eye moves as he watches an icon roam around a computer screen; the way the icon moves can be different every time, but the user’s eye movements include “kinetic features” — slight variations in trajectory — which are unique, making it possible to identify him

  • U.S. State Department interested in iris recognitions

    U.S. Department of State official says he is interested in examining deployment of iris recognition as part of the department’s biometric requirements for future e-documents; the official said the chief reasons for preferring iris biometrics was its high accuracy with a small footprint when compared to other more widely used biometric technology like face recognition

  • Overseas students in Australia to face biometric scans

    Foreign students in Australia will be included in a trial of biometric checks as part of a wider campaign to weed out potential terrorists; the screening process has been described by the Immigration Department as a discreet, non-intrusive examination that captures a digital facial image and 10-digit fingerprint scan

  • India's ambitious UIDAI project launched

    India’s ambitious UIDAI ID scheme aims to assign a biometric ID to country’s 1.2 billion inhabitants; Morpho helped the Indian prime minister officially launch to project by issuing the first 12-digit UIAID number during the inauguration ceremony

  • Facial-recognition technology comes to mobile phones

    Scientists at the University of Manchester have developed software for mobile phones that can track your facial features in real time; eventually it will be able to tell who the user is, where they are looking, and even how they are feeling

  • Metal thefts threaten U.K. infrastructure

    The last two years have seen the price of refined copper more than double; at the end of 2008 it was selling it at a low of less than £2,000 a ton, but by earlier this month it had reached more than £5,000; one result is the epidemic of metal theft in the United Kingdom; there have been more than 5,000 such thefts from the railways and the gas and electricity networks this year; and the police says this theft campaign now threatens U.K. infrastructure

  • Showcasing Israeli homeland security technology

    Next week’s Homeland Security International Conference in Tel Aviv will showcase Israel’s homeland security technology; Israel is already the world’s third-largest exporter of defense technology; in homeland security technology, it is among the Top 10 exporting countries; Brazil, India, Mexico, and Thailand, among others, are markets opening up for Israeli homeland security products

  • Fees for federal immigration docs to increases

    On 23 November the prices of most federal immigration documents, including green card replacements, are scheduled to increase; someone seeking to replace a green card, for example, will pay $450 under the new fee schedule, instead of $370

  • New U.S. naturalization documents more secure

    The new computerized naturalization certificates will have all that information embedded in the document and also will have ink patterns that are harder to duplicate; the new green cards have more security features, including a personalized holographic image, a laser-engraved fingerprint of the person, and improved identification technology