• Avoiding fraud in biometric identification

    The field of biometric anti-spoofing consists of trying to detect all of the possible attempts at fraud that a biometric system might suffer, especially with regard to an action in which the user presents the biometric proof to the system; Spanish researchers analyze possible attempts at fraud in various biometric identification systems in order to improve the security of facial, iris, fingerprint, or vascular recognition, among other types

  • Biometric-driven airport gates gain ground

    Biometrics-driven border controls in the United Kingdom are now well advanced, with a trial at London Stansted so successful, that the technology is now being rolled out at Heathrow Airport; still, biometric-driven airport gate technology is still in its infancy, with only around 1,000 gates in active use worldwide

  • SAIC in $23 million contract for biometric help to U.S. Central Command

    Collecting and registering personnel into biometric databases is key to helping identify insurgents throughout the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility; SAIC awarded a $23 million contract to help

  • Biometrics to help India keep rural job program honest

    The Indian government launched a rural job program in 2006, aimed at bringing jobs to the poorest of the poor in India; the scheme assures 100 days of manual work annually to at least one member of every rural household; the program is now benefiting 35.2 million households across 619 districts; critics say that the well-intentioned program has been accompanied by fraud, bogus job cards, and ghost workers; the Indian government is now working to correct these through biometrics

  • Kiwi immigration authorities testing facial recognition system

    New Zealand’s immigration authorities are testing facial recognition system from Daon to verify the identity of people coming through New Zealand customs; a decision about whether or not to adopt the system will be taken after a 12-month trial period

  • IBIA challenges NRC's state of biometrics report

    The International Biometrics & Identification Association (IBIA) says that the NRC report — especially the press release which accompanied it and which was titled “Automated Biometric Recognition Technologies Inherently Fallible” — created the inaccurate impression that biometric technologies were not yet ready for “prime time”; IBIA believes that for many useful applications, biometric technology is appropriate, effective, accurate, and reliable and is being widely deployed today

  • Multiple-biometric IDs to become a reality in India

    India’s government now issues multiple special-purpose IDs, including a Permanent Account Number for income tax transactions, an Electors Photo Identity Card for voting, ration cards, health care cards, driver’s licenses, and passports; India’s Aadhaar program, referred to as the UID, will eventually replace all of those. The UID system will process hundreds of thousands of identity validation requests each second, against the world’s largest database of individuals

  • Cogent, 3M clears legal hurdle

    3M Co. has cleared a major hurdle in its $943 million bid to acquire Pasadena, California-based biometrics firm Cogent, Inc.; a Delaware Chancery Court denied a Cogent shareholder’s motion to block the proposed acquisition of Cogent by 3M, citing the plaintiff’s inability to show reasonable probability of success on the merits of any of the claims

  • Malware will soon steal behavioral patterns

    Examples of malware which steals personal information are all around us, sometimes for the purpose of making it public and at other times for profit; computer scientists predict that a new generation of malware will mine social networks for people’s private patterns of behavior

  • California launches forgery-proof driver's license

    California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has begun issuing a redesigned security-enhanced drivers license which is loaded with features to thwart would-be forgers and identity thieves; this is the first major revision to the card since 2001

  • Voice biometrics help detect Euro terror plot

    Western intelligence services say that the discovery of the recent Euro terror plot owes at least some of its success to voice recognition technology that allows law enforcement electronically to match a voice to its owner; the technique can be an effective antiterror tool, and law enforcement agencies are already considering how a voice database could help thwart future plots

  • India embarks on ambitious biometric project: 1.2 billion IDs

    Yesterday India officially launched the world’s most ambitious biometrics project: assigning a unique 12-digit number to each of the country’s 1.2 billion people; the project, which seeks to collect fingerprint and iris scans from all residents and store them in a massive central database of unique IDs, is considered by many specialists the most technologically and logistically complex national identification effort ever attempted; the government says unique ID numbers will help ensure that government welfare spending reaches the right people, and will allow hundreds of millions of poor Indians to access services like banking for the first time

  • A glimpse at the future direction of biometrics

    The 18th Biometric Consortium Conference (BCC) was held in Tampa, Florida, last week; hundreds of exhibitors and speakers offered a window into the future of biometrics; attendees could not but notice the presence of large number of companies offering iris scan solutions, but NIST’s Fernando Podio, the event’s co-chair responsible for the development of the conference programs, is right: “Considering the number of high-level demonstrations, and highly detailed users’ and industry presentations, it would be impossible to pick out any program, company or product that was any more remarkable than the next”