• California passes smart-gun law

    Several companies are now working on embedding palm biometrics security mechanism in guns: The gun grip will store the image of the owner’s palm, and the gun will unlock only if the image of the palm holding the gun matches the stored image; California wants this mechanism in all guns sold in the state

  • UK Biometrics offers new finger print reader

    Newcastle-based biometric company introduces its Evolution product; company says Evolution can scan one million records per second

  • Biometric empire building: L-1 Identity Solutions acquires Bioscrypt

    Robert LaPenta’s L-1 has been steadily, methodically pursuing an acquisition campaign which would make the company an identification authentication superpower; latest acquisitions: Bioscrypt and the ID systems business of Digimarc

  • IrisGuard awarded Jordanian bank contract

    Cairo Amman Bank, the fastest growing retail bank in Jordan, will deploy U.K. company’s iris recognition technology in its seventy branches in the Middle East

  • Scholar: More biometrics means more freedom

    Irish scholar researching the history of biometrics and its current uses says that contrary to fears about invasion of privacy, the use of biometrics will lead to enhanced freedom (except for those who try to assume false identities)

  • Sagem Sécurité to coordinate TURBINE project

    TURBINE aims to develop advanced digital identity solutions, combining automatic fingerprint recognition and innovative cryptographic techniques; research efforts will focus on burying secret information inside a description of fingerprints

  • Microsoft joins MIT Kerberos Consortium

    Kerberos develops the widely used network authentication standard; eight years ago Microsoft was accused of subverting the standard by adding proprietary extensions; after Microsoft lost both U.S. and European anti-trust trials, company joins consortium

  • Behavioral observation program questioned

    TSDA has been training security officers in behavioral observation, then placed them in major U.S. airports to observe passengers and note suspicious behavior; in the past four years, 104,000 passengers were pulled out of line to answer to more serious security measures, but fewer than 700 were arrested – all on criminal, rather than terror, charges; critics are not sure the $45 million annual tab is justified

  • Siemens to offer fingerprint Internet ID

    To cut down on hacking of bank accounts, Siemens will introduce an Internet ID which scans the user’s fingerprints before allowing him or her access to the bank account

  • NIST: On-card fingerprint match is secure, speedy

    HSPD 12 mandates that by this fall most federal employees and contractors will be using federally approved PIV cards to authenticate their identity when seeking entrance to federal facilities; NIST tests two alternative authentication methods (we like the “match-on-card” approach)

  • CoreStreet's new access control technology making news

    CoreStreet’s Card-Connected technology creates a system of stand-alone electronic locks and physical access control systems which communicate by reading and writing digitally signed data (privileges and logs) to and from smart cards; card holders thus become an extension of the physical access network in which cards, rather than of wires, carry information to and from the standalone locks

  • DHS grants Maine Real ID extension

    Unless a state received a Real ID extension from DHS, then the driver’s licenses it issues to its residents must be Real ID-compliant by 11 May or state residents will not be able to board a plane, open a bank account, or enter a federal building; Maine’s application was not to DHS’s liking, so the state missed the extension application deadline; DHS decided to give the state 48 hours to comply

  • "Fingerprints are forever": Battle over using biometrics in school continues

    Arizona has been a battleground for the use of biometric technology in schools; citing the threat of identity theft, senators pass measure requiring parental consent before any biometric information is collected from children; “Fingerprints are forever,” says sponsoring senator

  • As Real ID kicks in 11 May, some states may be left in limbo

    Beginning 11 May, individuals who want to enter federal buildings or board a plane will have to show a state driver’s license complying with the Real ID Act — unless their state has been granted an extension by DHS (the extension is until 11 October 2009); Maine and South Carolina do not have Real ID-compliant licenses, and they are yet to apply for an extension (the deadline is today)

  • Security concerns over U.S. decision to outsource e-passport production

    The U.S. Government Printing Office’s (GPO) decision to outsource the production of the new e-passports to companies in Europe and Thailand makes legislators, security experts worry; Thailand is an unstable country with a tradition of corruption and rising Islamic terrorism problem; the Dutch company which operates the Thai e-passport production facilities filed court papers in October 2007 charging that China had stolen the company’s patented technology for e-passport chips