Identity authentication

Biometric technologies improve, offering greater reliability
Biometrics is not perfect — but it is improving; biometrics is developing along two lines — physical, which is often more intrusive for the user, and behavioral, which is usually less intrusive; Fujitsu’s Jerry Byrnes: “What was James Bond 15 years ago is biometric reality today”
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Biometric: Promise and peril
The trend toward digital identification and biometrics appears inexorable; this trend is a boon to companies in biometrics — but it also raises serious privacy concerns
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San Diego uses biometrics to identify and remove criminal aliens
San Diego County Sheriff’s Department deputies are the first law enforcement unit in California to use DHS Secure Community program to receive biometric-based immigration information
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Smarter Security Systems shows vascular reader
Austin, Texas-based company shows its new vascular patterns reader; low false acceptance rate (FAR) of 0.0001 percent, quickness (0.4/seconds per person), the ability to performs with skin conditions such as scars or dirt and any lighting conditions makes it ideal for industrial applications
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Travelers exiting U.S. will have fingerprints scanned
DHS relaunches a project to scan the fingerprints of international travelers leaving the united States; CBP will take fingerprints exiting the United States from Detroit, while TSA will do the same in Atlanta
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U.S., Canadian land, sea travelers to face new entry requirements
The last part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) kicks in Monday; U.S., Canadian land and see travelers entering the United States will have to present a passport or other approved documents; air travelers have already been doing so since 23 January 2007
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Centerlink replaces PINs with voice recognition
Australia’s welfare agency Centerlink has switched from PINs to voice recognition system to identify and manage clients; clients who routinely access self-service functions, such as lodging payment forms and updating the welfare agency with simple information about income, are most suitable for the system
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Products block unauthorized RFID reading of contactless cards
More and more countries and organizations move toward adopting RFID-enabled, biometric e-IDs — driver’s licenses, passports, national IDs, and more; trouble is, these e-documents are susceptible to digital pickpocketing; a U.K. company offers solutions
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Secure Flight launches today
Secure Flight is the third version — you may recall CAPPS and CAPPS II — of the U.S. federal government’s decade-old effort to screen commercial airline passengers for risk against terrorist watch lists; it launches today
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London airport in trials of facial recognition security
Stansted Airport outside London is testing security gates with facial recognition software as the first part of an eventual roll out of the new security gates to ten more U.K. airports
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UK Biometrics in talks with defense giant BAE
UK Biometrics is in talks with global defense contracting giant BAE about using UK Biometrics systems to safeguard BAE ultra-security-sensitive production sites
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Biometric scanners probes your brain to ID you
EU-funded research project tests biometric technologies which will scan people’s brain waves and heart rate to identify them
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iPod helps U.S. fight insurgents in Iraq
The U.S. military is using iPods and iPhones to help troops carry out operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; devices are used for biometric identification, and will soon be used as guidance systems for bomb disposal robots and to receive aerial footage from unmanned drone aircraft
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Canceling U.K. national ID scheme will save £400 million annually
If start up costs of £300 million are included, the U.K. National Identity Scheme will, over a decade, cost government and citizens around £4.3 billion more than the cost of current passports
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Britain to remove some DNA profiles from database
About 5.2 percent of the U.K. population is on the national DNA database, compared with just 0.5 percent in the United States; the European Court of Human Rights rules that Britain’s DNA database is incompatible with the requirements of democracy, and the Home Office says it will begin to remove the DNA of innocent citizens
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