• It is official: U.K. national ID cards scrapped within 100 days

    The new U.K. government made it official; within 100 days, the biometric national ID scheme would scrapped, and the National Identity Register, the database that contains the biographic and biometric fingerprint data of card holders, would also be destroyed

  • U.K. ID card cancellation to save taxpayers more than £800 million

    Documents accompanying Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech say that the U.K. government will save £86 million and the public will save more than £800 million in fees from the abolition of biometric national identity cards; the Queen outlines several other bills the Tory-Lib/Dem government will push, including adopting the Scottish model for the National DNA Database in England and Wales, further regulating CCTV, and ending the “storage of internet and email records without good reason”

  • U.K. second-generation ePassports project appears doomed

    A clause in the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal democrats call for chopping the second generation e-Passport scheme initiated be the departing Labor government; the U.K. biometric industry may not like this, but it is not yet clear what the impact on the industry will be; depending upon the water-tightness of contracts already signed with suppliers, the ID card project could still be fundamentally redesigned, rather than scrapped in its entirety; also, many other U.K. biometric projects will continue — IDENT1, Border Agency’s visa application program, eBorders program, and various Ministry of Defense documents that use the technology

  • New study confident about prospects of voice biometrics

    Commercial deployments of voice biometrics have been slow; in the past, this was because of the technology’s instability; yet, despite marked improvements and the ability to create robust solutions, voice biometrics still has not enjoyed the widespread proliferation which advocates of the technology anticipate; this is about to change

  • Aussie government agency proposes finger biometrics for background checks

    Australian government’s crime tracking agency has proposed tying fingerprints to passports and drivers licenses in an effort to reduce false identification for background checks; the plan, under high-level government talks, would reduce the time spent by law enforcement and customs agencies on sifting through possible identification matches

  • The Western Identification Network: a multi-state fingerprint identification system

    States can no avail themselves of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS); AFIS comprises a high-speed computer system that digitizes, stores, and compares fingerprint data and images; fingerprints entered into AFIS are searched against millions of prints on file and are identified by experts from resulting candidate lists; AFIS standards have been promulgated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS), and the system supports member submissions to the FBI through its CJIS wide-area network (WAN) connection

  • Awareness card for vehicle-borne IEDs

    First responders may now download a card which will help them identify — and respond to — IEDs and other suspected explosives

  • Paper I-94W forms will be no longer be needed for travelers from Visa Waiver nations

    By the end of the summer DHS will do away with paper I-94W forms for travelers from the thirty-six Visa Waiver Program nations; the process will now become completely electronic; travelers will log on to CBP’s Web site, submit their personal and travel information, and answer a list of questions related to public health and criminal activity that could make the traveler inadmissible

  • U.S. remains vulnerable, 9/11 commission leaders say

    Leaders of the 9/11 Commission lament the fact that more progress has not been made on several of the commission’s key recommendations — roadblocks to sharing intelligence, the inability of first responders to communicate on common radio frequencies, and the plethora of congressional committees that oversee DHS; Lee Hamilton calls for U.S. national ID

  • Apple patents heartbeat-recognition sensors for iPhone

    Apple’s new patent will allow iPhones to identify user’s heartbeats & mood; by integrating this technology with the iPhone, the handset can authenticate the user by seamlessly picking his or her heart rate instantly as soon as they pick up their phone; no password required or tedious scanning of fingerprints or faces

  • ICE says it will automatically vet juvenile immigrants fingerprints

    In a blow to San Francisco’s sanctuary law, the fingerprints of juvenile immigrants charged with serious offenses will also be automatically forwarded to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

  • Using behavioral biometrics for online IDs

    The federal Education Act of 2008 is driving schools to crack down on ID authenticity; it says that universities offering online programs need to put strict measures in place to make sure the students registered for those courses—and possibly receiving federal financial aid—are the same students getting credit for them

  • TIE Technologies unveils BIO Metric and intelligent video technology development project

    Edward Andercheck, chairman and CEO of TIE Technologies: “Today’s science has made it possible to identify and authenticate the ‘one of a kind’ unique BIO Signature generated by individuals entering or leaving designated areas, thereby enabling the protection of buildings and weapon systems, and empowering security in large cities everywhere.”

  • Zvetco secures electronic death certificate issuance

    More and more things are done on line — including issuing death certificates; there is thus a need to make sure that those who issue death certificates electronically are authorized to do so and that are who they say they are

  • Passwords may be passé, but biometrics is not yet viable for portable devices

    Passwords may be heading toward extinction, but biometric identification is not yet a viable means of authentication for mobile devices; smart phones and other portable devices do not currently have the sophistication to be adapted easily for biometric technology, and users are likely to be reluctant to carry yet another device and its electrical charger along with their smart phone simply to login to their bank account when not at their desktop computer