Biometrics

All U.S. counties on Mexican border now share inmate fingerprints with feds
All 25 U.S. counties along the Mexican border are now enrolled in the Secure Communities project; federal immigration officials now have access to the prints of every inmate booked into jail in these counties; Secure Communities makes the notification automatic; Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which plans to implement the program nationwide by 2013, says the program has identified more than 262,900 illegal immigrants in jails and prisons who have been charged with or convicted of criminal offenses, including more than 39,000 charged with or convicted of violent offenses or major drug crimes; ICE expects to remove 400,000 illegal immigrants this year; of the 200,000 illegal immigrants deported in the first ten months of fiscal year 2010, 142,000 illegal immigrants were with criminal records and about 50,000 were noncriminals; immigrant advocates say that some counties use Secure Communities to deport noncriminals: the national average of noncriminals flagged by Secure Communities is about 28 percent, but in Travis County, Texas, 82 percent of those removed through Secure Communities were noncriminals
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The promise, and risks, of battlefield biometrics
Using biometric devices in Afghanistan offers many benefits to coalition forces and to the Afghani themselves in making it easier to separate the good guys from the bad; some worry, however, that this can backfire — as was the case in Rwanda in 1994: identification cards which included photos and tribal affiliations of either Tutsis and Hutus made it easier for Hutu militias to identify the Tutsi and murder them
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Aging irises would hobble biometric identity checks based on iris recognition
Confirming someone;s identity through iris recognition involves matching a new scan of their iris — done, say, at an airport check point — against templates in a library. The systems are designed to cope with the fact that the scanning process is slightly variable, so two scans of the same eye will be slightly different; researchers have evidence that the degree of difference between any two scans — called the Hamming distance — increases over time for scans of the same eye
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Canadians outraged: Veiled Muslim women not required to lift veil, prove ID at airports
Canadian airport security personnel do not ask veiled Muslims women to lift their veils, show and ID, and prove their identity; the veiled women do not even interact with security personnel: rather, a man traveling with the women typically hands in all the passports and is the only one to communicate with airline staff while the veiled women simply walk through, unchecked and unidentified; a video showing two veiled women walking unchecked through security at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport causes outrage in Canada
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Sector Report for Tuesday, 3 August 2010: Authentication / Biometrics
This report contains the following stories.
* Elephant Talk launches ValidSoft voice-biometric solution for secure authentication

* BIO-key shows mobile biometric identification and authentication platform

* U.S. Army in $7.9 million contracts for biometrics help

* U.K. Border Agency approves Pearson's test security methods
Plus 1 additional story.
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Elephant Talk launches ValidSoft voice-biometric solution for secure authentication
Dutch company Elephant Talk launches a speaker verification platform to improve secure authentication; Elephant Talk’s CEO Patrick Carrol: “The ongoing maturity of the voice biometric market will result in the greater uptake of solutions that seamlessly integrate voice biometrics for remote verification”
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BIO-key shows mobile biometric identification and authentication platform
BIO-key believes that the world now is a place with 24/7 access to information from mobile devices; application providers and enterprise IT professionals have been struggling with how they can quickly, conveniently, and accurately establish the identity of remote users looking to access their sites and applications; the company offers a mobile fingerprint identification solution
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U.S. Army in $7.9 million contracts for biometrics help
Virginia-based Stanley has been awarded two contracts worth $7.9 million to support of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center Language Technology Office at Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Stanley will provide expertise for a range of programs related to the development of biometric and forensic-related applications, management, maintenance, and operation of government-owned network equipment
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U.K. Border Agency approves Pearson's test security methods
Students who want to study in the United Kingdom must prove their proficiency in English before being granted a student visa; Pearson, the authors of the Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic), relies on multiple layers of biometrics — palm vein scanning, digital signatures, and test day digital photographs of applicants — to ensure that those who take the test are who they say they are
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New identity theft scheme: stealing kids' Social Security numbers
The latest identity theft scheme: stealing kids’ Social Security numbers years before these kids grow up to use these numbers; the scheme allows people to establish phony credit and run up huge debts — debts that the kids may never be able to pay off
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Secure Communities to have greater impact than Arizona immigration law
Since 27 October 2008 through the end of May 2010, almost 2.6 million people have been screened with Secure Communities; of those, almost 35,000 were identified as illegal immigrants previously arrested or convicted for the most serious crimes, including murder and rape; more than 205,000 who were identified as illegal immigrants had arrest records for less serious crimes; during an eight-month period between 1 October 2009 to 7 June 2010, ICE figures show that 113,453 foreign nations with criminal records had been deported
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Sector Report for Saturday, 31 July 2010: Authentication / Biometrics
This report contains the following stories.
* New cybersecurity threat: smartphone apps that do more than what they say they do

* ATMs easily compromised by hacker at Black Hat

* Huge jump in IED attacks in Afghanistan

* Engineering graduate schools address homeland security

* Identifying future digital leakers, whistle-blowers

* U.S. nuclear weapons detection skills, capabilities deteriorate
Plus 3 additional stories
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The revival of CLEAR's Registered Traveler program
In 2003, Steven Brill, founder of Court TV and American Lawyer magazine, founded Verified Identity Pass and used it to launch the CLEAR program at Orlando International Airport; the program made it possible for pre-registered travelers to skip security checks at airports; the initial 8,000 travelers enrolled in 2003, and the service would grow to nearly 260,000 paying customers in a matter of five years; CLEAR went belly up in 2009, and its assets were bought by Algood Holdings, which relaunched the program; “Same brand, same logo, different company,” says CEO Caryn Seidman Becker
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U.K. removes lead contractor Raytheon from e-Borders program
The U.K. hits out at Raytheon, removing the company from the £1.2 billion e-Borders program; the immigration minister Damian Green said earlier today that the program was running at least twelve months late and that Raytheon had been in breach of contract since July last year; Home Office says it has “no confidence” in the company; Raytheon was the lead contractor of the Trusted Borders consortium, which won a £650 million deal in 2007 to build the e-Borders system; other members of the consortium, including Serco, Detica, Accenture, and Qinetiq will keep their contracts; Raytheon was responsible for systems integration, travel services, and overall project management
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Sector Report for Tuesday, 20 July 2010: Biometric technologies
This report contains the following stories.
* Safran in Talks to acquire most of L-1 Identity Solutions Inc.

* Facial-recognition solution offers surveillance new edge

* EU biometric passports not that safe, experts say

* Here's looking at you: Tokyo digital billboards scan passers-by
Plus 1 additional story.
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All U.S. counties on Mexican border now share inmate fingerprints with feds

The promise, and risks, of battlefield biometrics

Aging irises would hobble biometric identity checks based on iris recognition

Canadians outraged: Veiled Muslim women not required to lift veil, prove ID at airports

Sector Report for Tuesday, 3 August 2010: Authentication / Biometrics

Elephant Talk launches ValidSoft voice-biometric solution for secure authentication

BIO-key shows mobile biometric identification and authentication platform

U.S. Army in $7.9 million contracts for biometrics help

U.K. Border Agency approves Pearson's test security methods

New identity theft scheme: stealing kids' Social Security numbers

Secure Communities to have greater impact than Arizona immigration law

Sector Report for Saturday, 31 July 2010: Authentication / Biometrics

The revival of CLEAR's Registered Traveler program

U.K. removes lead contractor Raytheon from e-Borders program

Sector Report for Tuesday, 20 July 2010: Biometric technologies

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