Biometrics for fraud protection have become a critical piece of the online world, minting billion-dollar companies, but one of the top consultancies in the field says that by combining biometrics with other technologies, identity verification providers can tap into an emerging growth opportunity. The most-read story of the week on Biometric Update was Liminal’s forecast for Identity Authorization Networks, which notes ID.me, fresh off a fundraise at a $1.8 billion valuation, as a potential winner in the segment. The trial of age assurance technology in Australia by ACCS and NEC’s new imaging technology are other examples of face biometrics being layered with other technologies to address familiar problems in new ways.
Most read biometrics news this week
Digital identity networks that include enterprise identity and fraud protection capabilities are defined by Liminal as Identity Authorization Networks (IANs), and the consultancy pegs their market opportunity at $15.5 billion by 2028, just in the U.S. The new report says Proof, ID.me, Entrust, Clear, Visa, DocuSign and Google are ready to stand up IANs now, while Jumio and Socure are just a step behind in readiness to address the emerging market.
ID.me raised $67 million in a tender offer valuing the firm at $1.8 billion, and made an appearance at number 315 of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. The company says it is adding 60,000 new users daily and its revenue grew by 370 percent from 2020 to 2023, leading to reported preparations for an IPO next year.
A bipartisan group of 14 American Senators has called for an investigation into the use of facial recognition by the TSA. The Senators claim concern about the technology’s accuracy, necessity and impact on privacy, and suggest Congress should block the program’s expansion, pending “rigorous congressional oversight.” They say the agency has not provided sufficient evidence that the use of biometrics is necessary to spot fraud or speed up passenger processing.
The new biometric pre-enrollment app intended to make the EU’s EES border control system operationally feasible was presented by Frontex at an iMARS conference last week. The Quick Border app, hurriedly developed in 10 months, has been through two tests, but the face biometric verification and chip reading functions are still being improved.
ACCS CEO Tony Allen filled in the details of Australia’s trial of age assurance technology and released the full project plan this week. The trial relies heavily on the ISO/IEC DIS 27566-1 standard, and will examine a range of options, from biometric facial age estimation to inference based on data like purchasing history, for their effectiveness and privacy protection.
A pair of American legislators and Meta think app stores should be responsible for age verification, with the social media giant offering up a metaphor that may apply in the metaverse, but not in meatspace. Apple disagrees, naturally, but has the AVPA and ACCS on its side.
NEC has introduced a technology for capturing both face and iris biometrics from a single image, without adjusting the camera between modalities. The capability is delivered in a compact camera module that could go in POS devices, ATMs or tablets, and works on lower-resolution images, the company says.
Generative AI is enabling fraudsters to gather information about their targets, tailor attacks to specific banks and defeat authentication checks, Feedzai Senior Director of Data Science Xin Ren writes in a guest post for Biometric Update. The combination of AI defenses with human expertise and collaboration across the financial industry, however, can defeat even these sophisticated attacks.
Illuma Founder and CEO Milind Borkar tells the Finovate podcast the origin story of his voice biometrics business as a research and development contractor for the federal government, and its pivot to serving financial institutions. He talks about why demos of Illuma’s voice recognition look nearly the same even as the technology improves, and the difference between AI and machine learning.
The number of e-Tazkira digital IDs issued in Afghanistan has grown by 8.1 million to 12.2 million in total since the Taliban took over in 2021, but rural numbers are low, and the cost has been increased fivefold. The NSIA is opening new centers and deploying mobile teams, and the government claims improvement, but regional disparities and claims of corruption linger.
A pre-release edition of the UK’s DIATF has been published as businesses and regulators prepare for the passage of the Data (Use and Access) Bill. The framework is restructured in version 0.4 for ease of navigation, and makes changes to improve the digital identity system’s inclusiveness.
DHS’ OBIM is looking into migrating a pair of latent fingerprint biometrics databases holding more than 300 million identity records to AWS GovCloud. An RFI seeks a cost estimate for a cloud system that can search those databases 3,000 a day, between them, within specified times, and also asks about accuracy.
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Article Topics
biometric authentication | biometrics | digital ID | digital identity | identity verification | week in review
