BT/ Apple seeks a patent for a way to turn iPhone screens into cameras
Biometrics biweekly vol. 48, 12th September — 26th September
TL;DR
- Apple has applied for a U.S. patent covering a method to turn an iPhone’s screen into a display and a camera, suggesting a possible way to keep Face ID biometrics without a cutout area of the screen to house the camera hardware
- A patent application from Samsung shows an under-display camera (UDC) with biometric capabilities aimed at making facial recognition on phones more accurate and safer
- Fingerprint biometric authentication for incognito browsing is being added to Chrome
- Several companies in the biometric space have announced new channel and distribution partnerships. Hummingbirds AI joined the Panasonic XCELERATE software application developer program, Secret Double Octopus (SDO) has partnered with financial advisory services company PwC India, and BIO-key entered a distribution partnership with Israel-based Multipoint GROUP
- Biometrics vendors namely, Idemia National Security Solutions (Idemia NSS), computer vision technology company Nodeflux and NEC Asia Pacific, have each earned certifications for their product quality and performance capabilities
- The UK plans the next round of biometrics self-enrollment trials for apps and kiosks
- ThreatFabric develops behavioral analytics to stop social engineering attacks
- Idemia claims fairest facial verification among most accurate algorithms in latest NIST test
- D-ID launches a platform for businesses to generate synthetic video presenters from a photo
- Comments sought on working draft of ISO face biometrics fairness testing standard
- PixLab launches face biometrics authentication framework for web applications
- Facial recognition coming to Lincoln Corsair as partnerships formed for automotive biometrics
- Pulse Security selling IP for multi-biometric doorbell invention with IR thermometer
- Suprema’s latest face biometric access control terminal offers new data security controls
- Identos builds Verifiable Credentials into updated federated digital ID API
- Veriff partners with the mobile developer as selfie biometrics use grow for payments, deliveries
- iProov contributes face biometrics to consortium piloting payments with EU digital ID wallet
- Precision Biometric, Crunchfish to pilot mobile, offline retail payments in a regulatory sandbox
- Clearview facial recognition used to exonerate suspect on trial over traffic fatality
- Daon’s voice biometrics launch on Genesys enterprise cloud marketplace
- IDnow joins IATA accelerator program
- Onfido, ComplyCube upgrade biometric solutions for faster, easier KYC checks
- India turns to fingerprint biometric liveness to stem spoof attacks on Aadhaar payments
- Serpro signs up Persona for the Brazilian biometric ID verification database
- Oz Forensics launches partner program to ease biometric liveness adoption by businesses
- Humanode announced the launch of Humanode testnet 4 ‘Gaghiel’ focused on token claims, vesting, and unlocking systems that the team will use to distribute tokens at TGE
- Alcatraz AI plays on its Bulgarian connections for $25m series A
- Calumino raises over $10M to scale thermal sensor platform, reach new use cases
- Tactile launches new palm biometrics scanner; market forecast above $530M by 2027
- Fast e-commerce settlement play with selfie, behavioral biometrics pulls in $51.5M
- Biometric authentication used by U.S. businesses triples
- TikTok says physical biometrics stay on users’ devices, keystroke logs do not
- Almost a third of UK employers believe loyalty cards are acceptable right-to-work ID
- Colombia’s biometric digital ID surpasses 500K applications as govt pushes the digital version
- India claims to effectively meet SDG16.9 of legal ID for all, expands authentication methods
- Spain deploying biometrics at Morocco land border for EES
- Pakistan disburses over $100M in flood relief via biometric ID
- The Dominican Republic prepares the ground for biometric passport project take-off
- Nigeria reaches 90M digital ID registrations as database capacity issue looms
- New ways to separate noise from signal trim processes to boost image quality
- New research finds that a controversial facial recognition dataset of trans people remained available online for years after the initial controversy of its existence
- Deepfakes detected via reverse modeling of the vocal tract are ‘comically’ non-human
- Biometric industry events. And more!
Biometrics Market
The Biometric system market size is projected to grow from USD 36.6 billion in 2020 to USD 68.6 billion by 2025; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 13.4% during the forecast period. Increasing use of biometrics in consumer electronic devices for authentication and identification purposes, the growing need for surveillance and security with the heightened threat of terrorist attacks, and the surging adoption of biometric technology in automotive applications are the major factors propelling the growth of the biometric system market.
Biometric Research & Development
Latest Research:
Prominent facial recognition researcher scraped videos of trans people, left dataset exposed
New research finds that a controversial facial recognition dataset of trans people remained available online for years after the initial controversy of its existence, reports AlgorithmWatch. The academic responsible is a U.S. government advisor.
Public scrutiny goes back to 2017 when The Verge investigated the work of Karl Ricanek, a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. But his research goes back even further, to 2013.
Ricanek built a biometric dataset of 10,000 images of 38 trans people, scraped from their YouTube videos documenting their hormone therapies. The dataset would improve facial recognition system accuracy in being able to establish that an individual is the same person but after hormone therapy.
In 2017, Ricanek said he had tried to acquire consent from the video posters, but had not been able to reach them all and that he only shared links to the videos, not the images themselves.
However, fresh research by Os Keyes and Jeanie Austin, published in Big Data & Society, finds that not only was the HRT Transgender Dataset still available as a Dropbox URL until April 2021, but that it was not simply videoed URLs, but contained the videos, many of which had since been deleted from YouTube by the posters and all of which were subject to copyright.
Keyes and Austin contacted the institutional review board at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington about the project, only to discover that Ricanek never sought ethical approval. The dataset was shared with academics who subsequently shared it with their own doctoral students and researchers, again without oversight.
Earlier this week, Ricanek spoke about democratizing face biometric technology for the transgender community, at FedID, the Federal Identity Forum and Expo, as part of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine knowledge-gathering project on facial recognition and the data behind it.
Ricanek said that democratizing face-based tech for the transgender community will be a challenge for algorithms as well as policymakers.
His data acquisition appears to be informing his advice. He said that even hormone therapy can alter a face significantly as changes in skin density and vascular structure can be enough to fool AI.
Deepfakes detected via reverse modeling of the vocal tract are ‘comically’ non-human
Scientists have long been researching what sorts of sounds a dinosaur made or how a person’s voice may sound based on skulls or other elements and organs that produce speech. By reversing this process and applying it to deep fakes, scientists generate models of the vocal organs that the speaker in the deepfake audio must-have. And they are not a human, as reports The Conversation.
Research by Logan Blue, PhD student in Computer and Information Science and Engineering, and Patrick Traynor, professor in the same department at the University of Florida along with research colleagues, uses speech mechanics to reconstruct everything from vocal folds to teeth from deep fake audio, easily discovering the tell.
Their technique measures the acoustic and fluid dynamic differences in voice samples from humans and those generated synthetically. The models, even as line drawings, clearly show the difference, with the synthetic voice revealing that it has not been made in the same way as a human voice, that it has not come from a human body.
“When extracting vocal tract estimations from deepfake audio, we found that the estimations were often comically incorrect,” write the researchers in The Conversation. “For instance, it was common for deepfake audio to result in vocal tracts with the same relative diameter and consistency as a drinking straw, in contrast to human vocal tracts, which are much wider and more variable in shape.”
Deep fakes often succeed via social engineering, rather than fooling biometric identity checks. Audio is easier to pull off than video, but may now also be easier to detect. Biometric precision verification could be another tool to detect attempts, Russia’s Sber bank is patenting a method for detecting the circulation of blood below a speaker’s skin.
Paravision has recently received funding from an unnamed partner of the Five Eyes alliance to detect deepfake videos.
2022 EAB Awards honor research on barriers to ECG, finger vein, and face biometrics
The European Association for Biometrics (EAB) has named the 2022 European Biometrics Max Snijder, Research and Industry Awards winners.
Winners for the 16th annual EAB European Biometrics Awards were selected from presentations of three candidates for each, chosen by an international jury for their high-quality research papers and delivered during a hybrid meeting.
João Ribeiro Pinto of the University of Porto has won the Max Snijder Award for his PhD thesis on ‘Seamless Multimodal Biometrics for Continuous Personalised Wellbeing Monitoring.’ The paper describes a methodology for ECG biometrics that integrates traditional pipeline processes, template security and interpretability. Pinto gave a presentation on his ideas for ECG biometrics during a recent EAB lunch talk.
The Industry Award winner is Fadi Boutros of Fraunhofer IGD, for her work on ‘Efficient and High Performing Biometrics: Towards Enabling Recognition in Embedded Domains.’ Boutros examined efficient, high-performance facial recognition, the challenge presented by masks, and biometrics in head-mounted displays.
Bernhard Prommegger of the University of Salzburg received the Research Award for his work on ‘Finger Rotation Estimation and Correction in Finger Vein Biometrics.’ Prommegger’s work addressed the difficulty caused by misalignment, and in particular longitudinal finger rotation, in vein recognition.
Main News:
Apple seeks a patent for a way to turn iPhone screens into cameras
Apple has applied for a U.S. patent covering a method to turn an iPhone’s screen into a display and a camera, suggesting a possible way to keep Face ID biometrics without a cutout area of the screen to house the camera hardware.
The application suggests that the front-facing camera and other sensors of an iPhone may be moved under the display.
Spotted by Patently Apple, application 20220293682 describes organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays with integrated organic photodetectors for in-cell optical sensing (perception using optical photodetectors, or OPDs).
In-cell optical sensing may be used for biometrically sensing a face, fingerprint, and retina, alongside OLED sensing of illumination, touch, ambient light, or health.
Further, OPDs have the potential to be configured to sense infrared light and other electromagnetic radiation wavelengths.
The invention could have uses beyond smartphone screens, such as in mixed reality headsets, smart glasses, health monitoring devices, Apple’s Watch, vehicle and robot navigation systems, and iPads.
The under-display tech patent application comes months after Apple was granted two patents hinting at wrist biometrics in MacBooks and additional under-display sensors for iPhones.
Samsung’s under-display camera for biometrics shown in new patent filing
A patent application from Samsung shows an under-display camera (UDC) with biometric capabilities aimed at making facial recognition on phones more accurate and safer.
Spotted by Galaxy Club, the patent is called ‘Method, Apparatus and Storage Medium for Authenticating User’ and was published by the Korean Intellectual Property Right Information Service (KIPRIS) last Thursday.
From a technical standpoint, the invention describes how Samsung wants to build multiple UDCs to allow users’ faces to be scanned from different angles.
The same patent also describes a feature that allows smartphones to check pupils’ responses via the UDCs, likely for iris biometric authentication applications.
UDCs are not necessary to perform iris recognition, but multiple cameras working in concert could result in more accurate biometric readings, both for iris and face images.
At the same time, UDCs have a lower pixel density than the rest of the screen, which is why they are usually integrated at the top of the screen, far from the portion where most user interaction is recorded. Conversely, having multiple UDCs may disrupt users’ viewing experience.
The technology described in this may or may not find applications in future Samsung phones, but it is unsurprising to see the company working on under-display biometrics, as Apple has already published several patents related to the technology, including one last month.
Fingerprint biometric authentication for incognito browsing is being added to Chrome
A feature that allows a user to access or lock a Chrome incognito tab on an Android device has been added to the browser as part of efforts to enhance browsing safety and security.
The feature is not widely available yet, but it can be accessed using a Google Chrome flag on some of the latest versions of android, reports 9to5Google, a news portal that focuses on all news on Google and Android.
This development means that Google Chrome can lock any open Incognito tabs using fingerprint authentication when a user quits the browser.
Returning to those closed tabs after re-launching the Chrome browser will take the user to ‘Unlock Incognito.’ Clicking on it will open the fingerprint feature interface where the user can verify their biometrics to access the tab.
Also added to the fingerprint authentication option is a Personal Identification Number (PIN), the outlet mentions.
This move follows a similar development in 2020 in which a ‘Privacy Screen’ option was added to some Google apps on iOS to enable authentication by Touch or Face ID.
The fingerprint authentication feature for Chrome incognito tabs is hidden behind the flag menu, but a user can activate it on the Chrome 105 stable channel, writes Ars Technica.
In a similar development, Chrome has hinted about plans to introduce biometric authentication as an optional feature in settings for filling form data using the browser.
The change reportedly goes along with a number of other innovations the browser has added to its system lately, including plans to make the Chrome password manager user interface (UI) an independent page, rather than appearing as a sub-section in Chrome’s main settings, reports Chrome Unboxed.
The report indicates that the UI is still being developed with just three options available on the page as yet. However, the new password manager UI page with its full setting options is said to be ‘coming soon.’
The UK plans next round of biometrics self-enrollment trials for apps and kiosks
The UK’s Biometrics Self-Enrolment Feasibility Trials have reached Phase 2, with a request for expression of interest from developers of technology running on smartphones to assess how the state of the art has improved since the trials held in late 2021.
The new trials will assess the effectiveness of fingerprint biometric enrollment and presentation attack detection (PAD) technology. For the initial benchmark exercise, subjects will be volunteers from among Home Office staff, and from the general public for the capture trial, with the PAD trial running parallel to both.
The success criteria for the benchmark exercise is a completion rate of ten fingerprint enrollments by more than 95 percent of subjects. The verification target is a 0.2 percent false rejection rate and 0.01 percent false acceptance rate. PAD performance success is defined as a 0.2 percent BPCER and 0.1 percent APCER.
Additional criteria for success in the trial assessment are included in the project documentation, including usability, particularly around the capture of thumbprints.
Submissions for the new round of trials are due by October 10, 2022.
Tactile launches new palm biometrics scanner; market forecast above $530M by 2027
Several companies and governmental institutions have announced updates regarding palm biometrics solutions, with Tactile Technologies signing a distribution deal for PerfectID’s palm vein recognition solution and the California Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR) releasing some updates on its biometric requirements. Also, the Seattle Seahawks and Lumen Field employed the Amazon One palm scanners, and new figures by ResearchAndMarkets suggest the palm vein scanner global market will reach $531.37 million by 2027.
ThreatFabric develops behavioral analytics to stop social engineering attacks
Amsterdam-based ThreatFabric has rolled out a behavioral analytics capability for its fraud prevention software suite to help banks fend off social engineering attacks and other fraud types.
The extension to the company’s Fraud Risk Suite was designed in collaboration with banks, according to the announcement. It combines sensor data from users’ digital devices, like keyboard taps, swipes, and touch gestures to create a picture of their cognitive behavior. Long pauses during typing, for instance, can indicate doubt. The feature will be used to enhance digital identity proofing and remove the friction of step-up authentication when it is not needed.
ThreatFabric takes pains to explain that the feature does not include behavioral biometrics, as it does not contribute to the identification of individual users or attackers.
“The behaviour data on its own is not strong enough to be classified as any form of biometrics,” the company asserts in a blog post.
“Even though behavioural biometrics and behavioral analysis use similar techniques, the goals are completely different,” elucidates Patrick Bours, a professor of Behavioral Biometrics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “Where biometrics aims to identify or authenticate a single person, is analytics used to detect anomalies and deviations in normal behavior.”
Bours consulted for ThreatFabric on the use of behavioral analytics to detect advanced social engineering attacks and differentiate between genuine users and cybercriminals.
Another point of common confusion pointed out by ThreatFabric is the assumption that only the elderly or less tech-savvy are vulnerable to social engineering attacks like voice phishing.
ThreatFabric says its behavioral analytics tool upgrades businesses’ existing digital identity and access management (IAM) systems to perform Continuous Adaptive Trust (CAT) of users for frictionless multi-factor authentication.
Onfido, ComplyCube upgrade biometric solutions for faster, easier KYC checks
Onfido and ComplyCube have announced upgrades to their ID verification platforms for seamless and speedy KYC checks.
Onfido says it has launched Motion, a biometric anti-spoofing tool aimed at enhancing the functionality of its Real Identity Platform, while ComplyCube has upgraded its SaaS solution for codeless KYC.
Idemia claims fairest facial verification among most accurate algorithms in latest NIST test
Idemia’s scores in the latest Face Recognition Vendor Test for one-to-one verification show near-identical false match rates between different demographic groups, topping the 100 most accurate algorithms in fairness, according to a company announcement.
The Idemia-009 algorithm had the fourth-best result in the Mugshot, Border Photos and Kiosk Photos categories, the seventh-best in ‘VisaBorder Photos’ and ninth-best in Mugshot Photos after 12 years in the September 1 update to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s benchmark.
The company seems most proud of it results in demographic differentials, or bias, however. Idemia says its algorithm was shown to be more than twice as fair as the 20 most-accurate competitor algorithms, as of the August 30 report.
“NIST’s FRVT results are further evidence of the highest standard we have set with our suite of facial recognition technologies, positioning fairness as a key criterion, in addition to accuracy,” says Idemia CTO Jean-Christophe Fondeur. “By being more than twice the fairness of the top 20 most accurate, we continue to lead the industry in terms of social responsibilities. Idemia is paving the way in the ‘battle for fairness’ and I would like to congratulate our teams of experts on their excellent work meeting this priority.”
The top-performing algorithms evaluated by NIST in the biometric verification accuracy test remain largely unchanged from recent reports.
Idemia also claims top marks for accuracy in the NIST one-to-many test, a top score for single-eye accuracy in the IREX 10 iris biometrics benchmark, and a high mark in several categories of the PFT III fingerprint recognition test.
D-ID launches a platform for businesses to generate synthetic video presenters from a photo
D-ID is launching a video creation platform for generating synthetic media as personalized videos with what the company says are ‘hyper-real AI presenters.’
The Creative Reality Studio is a self-service video platform that uses a single still image to generate customized, high-quality video content.
The platform was created in response to demand from enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses, the company says. Applications include learning and development (L&D) content, internal and external communications, product marketing, and sales enablement materials.
Customers can choose the ethnicity, age, gender, language, accent, and intonation of the synthetic presenter, to maximize representation and diversity. The choice of Premium Presenters includes a life-like upper body and facial movements, including hand gestures, D-ID says. Custom Premium Presenters can be created from short videos.
“D-ID’s work has already generated more than 100 million videos,” says Gil Perry, CEO and co-founder of D-ID. “Now that we’re offering our self-service Creative Reality platform, the potential is huge. It enables larger enterprises, smaller companies and freelancers to produce personalized videos for a range of purposes at a massive scale, with the potential to engage audiences in learning and development, sales training, and more. Our technology cuts through the headache of corporate video production to effortlessly create high-quality, cost-effective, professional videos in any language at the click of a button.”
The service can also make multi-lingual engagement easier, D-ID says, with support for 119 languages and dialects. Audio can also be uploaded directly, and a voice cloning feature used to match a particular voice.
New ways to separate noise from signal trim processes to boost image quality
Image processing software maker Visionary.ai has launched a new real-time video denoiser designed to improve video quality.
According to EdgeIR, the algorithms developed by Visionary are sufficiently lightweight to be deployed on cost-effective silicon and to run at the edge.
“In very low light, when there are few photons for an image sensor to capture, noise is the limiting factor,” explains Visionary Chief Technology Officer Yoav Taeib.
“For human vision applications, this noise adds speckles, blurs, and distortion to images, and for machine vision, it reduces the accuracy of object recognition,” he says.
To capture substantially more photons would require an image sensor and connected lens that are proportionally bigger, driving up costs.
“An AI-based approach that uses the raw image data and uses a sophisticated algorithm to separate the noise from the image signal is a more effective way to extend camera performance,” the CTO says.
Visionary says it benchmarked its denoiser against other approaches to noise reduction. According to the company, the only close competitor in terms of results was Restormer, which reportedly required more processing power and took 212 times longer to execute.
Another approach to denoise images was recently developed by the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, in collaboration with VinAI Research and the University of Waterloo (which has been on this topic for some time).
The new research describes a self-supervised, post-correction network that improves the denoising performance without relying on a reference.
According to a press release by the Gwangju Institute, the model is designed for scenarios in which the test image is substantially different from images used for training.
The method typically used to render high-quality and realistic images is known as “path tracing,” which relies on a Monte Carlo denoising approach based on supervised machine learning, according to a new research paper.
In this learning framework, the machine learning model is first pre-trained with noisy and clean image pairs and then applied to the noisy test image to be rendered.
However, associate professor Bochang Moon from the Gwangju Institute, one of the project researchers, says that existing methods fail on two accounts. First, test and train datasets are very different, and second, they require a long time to acquire the training dataset for pretraining the network.
“What is needed is a neural network that can be trained with only test images on the fly without the need for pre-training,” Moon says.
The researcher also claimed the team’s approach is the first one that does not rely on pretraining with an external dataset and can reportedly be trained on the fly to produce high-quality images in roughly 12 seconds.
“This, in effect, will shorten the production time and improve the quality of offline rendering-based content such as animation and movies,” he says.
The collaboration between the Gwangju Institute and the University of Waterloo comes roughly two years after VinAI Research developed facial recognition technology with mask-detection capabilities, one of the first companies to do so at the beginning of the pandemic.
Comments sought on working draft of ISO face biometrics fairness testing standard
The International Standards Organization has approved a working draft of the international standard for assessing facial recognition performance across different demographic groups.
Working Draft 4 of ISO 19795–10 sets out proposed methods for testing and measuring the differences in the performance of face biometric systems commonly referred to as bias.
Maryland Test Facility Principal Data Scientist John Howard announced the release of the working draft on LinkedIn, and invited organizations and labs working on fairness and face biometrics to read and comment on it.
“We hope this standard will inform (increasingly mandatory) testing efforts across the globe,” Howard writes. “This draft is not only significantly streamlined but also steadily approaching a finished product.”
“In recent years, many groups around the world have started to focus on the equitability of biometric systems, particularly face recognition,” Howard, editor of the 19795–10 standard, told Biometric Update. “To date, there has been no standard approach for organizations to follow when measuring differences in biometric system performance across demographic groups. The 19795–10 standard is the first effort to develop a consensus approach for measuring demographic differentials in biometric systems. Engaging international experts through the ISO process ensures that the standard uses only technically sound and well-vetted methodologies to support future demographic testing efforts.”
Howard’s colleague at the Maryland Test Facility, Technical Director Yevgeniy Sirotin, also serves as co-editor of the standard.
Those interested in providing feedback can get access to the Working Draft through their national standards bodies.
The standard in development is supported by a broad base of research, including a pair of papers recently published by experts at MdTF.
Comments are due by October 3, ahead of a release planned for 2023.
PixLab launches face biometrics authentication framework for web applications
Machine vision company PixLab has launched its web-based facial authentication framework, FaceIO, which can be integrated on any website via JavaScript and is designed to authenticate users via face biometrics instead of the traditional login and password pairs or one-time password (OTP) codes.
“FaceIO is the easiest way to add passwordless authentication to web-based applications,” PixLab wrote in a press release.
“Simply implement fio.js on your website, and you will be able to instantly authenticate your existing users and enroll new ones via face recognition using their computer webcam or frontal smartphone camera on their favorite browser.”
The company also clarifies that FaceIO does not require biometric sensors to be available on the client side. The technology also seemingly works with websites and web-based applications regardless of the underlying front-end JavaScript framework or server-side language.
In terms of how to add the biometric solution to websites, customers will have to first create a new application via the FaceIO Console and link the resource (fio.js) to their website or web application.
As for the biometric technology itself, PixLab said FaceIO’s facial recognition engine could authenticate users in 100 milliseconds. However, customers will be offered two biometric engines upon signing up for the platform: PixLab Insight and AWS Rekognition.
“Insight is the default engine developed by PixLab exclusively for FaceIO,” PixLab wrote.
Insight is optimized for accuracy, according to the company, and real-time performance for live video feeds. It can detect and match faces even under challenging conditions where they are moving, at different angles, under tough lighting conditions, or partially obscured by face covers.
“Both engines (Insight and AWS Rekognition) are able to search and match potentially millions of faces from images or video feed at near real-time,” PixLab explained. “You can freely test the accuracy of both engines by creating a new application on the FaceIO Console.”
Facial recognition coming to Lincoln Corsair as partnerships formed for automotive biometrics
Several companies in the automotive space have recently unveiled new partnerships or products showcasing the potential of biometrics in the car industry. Joint venture Rheinmetall Dermalog SensorTec made its public debut at the InCabin trade show in Brussels this week and Lincoln confirmed its 2023 Corsair model will offer biometric tech, while Smart Eye partnered with ams Osram to deliver biometric sensing for enhanced driver monitoring and passenger safety.
Pulse Security selling IP for multi-biometric doorbell invention with IR thermometer
A new multi-biometric doorbell that can read the temperature and biometrics of a person before allowing them entry to a facility has been developed to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
The patent-pending invention, which can analyze a person’s temperature, pulse, fingerprint, voice, and face, has been put up for sale or license by inventor and entrepreneur Ross Markbreiter, of Pulse Security Systems.
Markbreiter announced that the intellectual property behind the doorbell is for sale back in April, at an asking price of over a million dollars.
Biometric scanning determines a person’s identity. Visitors would have to press their finger against a scanner in order to start the verification, notes the Pulse Security website, which appears dedicated solely to marketing the patent.
An infrared thermometer is used to detect fever, while a standard camera performs facial recognition. The doorbell is also equipped with a microphone to perform voice recognition.
If the LED lights on the doorbell go green, the person at the door is allowed access. If one of the lights shows red, the door remains locked, and the visitor could use the integrated speaker to speak with someone for assistance.
The multi-modal biometrics and temperature-reading doorbell is a response to the challenges brought about by common doorbell systems where a person’s identity can be verified, but not their health status, according to the announcement.
Idemia, Nodeflux, NEC earn certs for biometric products, performance
- Idemia gets CMMI level 3 appraisal
Idemia NSS has earned a level 3 appraisal of its Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), performed by ChangeBridge Consulting.
A company announcement mentions that CMMI is a time-tested outcome-based performance model that has become the global standard for improving capability, ensuring optimal business performance, and aligning operations with business goals.
The level 3 appraisal also means the company’s processes are well-characterized and -understood, and are described in standards, procedures, tools, and methods, the announcement adds.
Patrick Clancey, president and chief executive of Idemia NSS, says, “Organizations worldwide are harnessing CMMI to elevate their business performance. Achieving maturity level 3 is the product of constant effort across NSS, demonstrating our ability as a high-performing organization. This accomplishment further illustrates our focus on continuous improvement and the relentless commitment to support our nation’s toughest mission sets.”
- Nodeflux achieves TKDN certification for AI surveillance
Nodeflux says it has become the first domestic AI software company in Indonesia to earn the Domestic Component Level (TKDN) certification with a score of up to 99.04 percent, allowing it to enter the LKPP e-catalog from the government for VisionAIre products.
The certification is a government program that aims to encourage optimum performance of national industries through productivity and competitiveness in the delivery of strategic state-funded projects.
“This TKDN certificate complements the performance of VisionAIre Docker from Nodeflux, which was previously also an AI company from Indonesia, which was the first to pass the NIST (National Institute of Standard and Technology) test from the United States as a facial recognition vendor,” says Meidy Fitranto, Nodeflux CEO.
Fitranto says earning the certification is a big boost for Nodeflux, a company operating in an environment dominated by foreign AI suppliers.
Nodeflux’s chief business officer, Ivan Tigana, says “of the five legal institutions in Indonesia, four of them have adopted VisionAIre.”
- AI ethics, governance certification awarded to NEC
Efforts by NEC APAC to encourage professional development in AI ethics and governance in the workplace, and its commitment toward building an effective and trusted AI ecosystem, have been recognized by the Singapore Computer Society.
In this light, the company was selected among the inaugural Top 10 Champions in AI Ethics and Governance Certification during the recent Tech Forum 2022 organized by the society in partnership with Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority.
The society is a leading tech association for industry professionals in Singapore. Leaders of the group announced its joint AI ethics and governance certification 2021 to guide and educate businesses and professionals on the responsible development and use of AI.
NEC APAC Managing Director Teh Chong Mien says, “NEC has aligned our mission based on Singapore’s Smart Nation vision. And we are committed to helping Singapore achieve its goals outlined in its national AI strategy. We will do our best to realize a safer and brighter world by engaging the relevant stakeholders to build a robust digital trust framework based on ethics and human-centric technology.”
Society President Sam Liew says, “We are heartened to have partners such as NEC play a leading role in supporting Singapore’s AI ecosystem, and we welcome all organizations to join us in growing the pool of AI ethics professionals in Singapore.”
Humanode testnet 4 ‘Gaghiel’ is live
The Humanode team announced the launch of Humanode testnet 4 ‘Gaghiel’.
After the successful test of Grandpa-enabled Testnet 3 “Ramiel”, the Humanode dev team has been working hard to make the Humanode blockchain technology even better. Testnet 4 “Gaghiel’’ will be focusing on token claims, vesting, and unlocking systems that the team will use to distribute tokens at TGE.
Here’s a hint: since Humanode main goal for Testnet 4 is to test the token claims and vesting period, running a node in testnet 4 isn’t compulsory. However, Gaghiel is open to everyone. If you’d like to run testnet 4, this is specially prepared for you: https://link.humanode.io/testnet4.
Click here to read the details about Gaghiel.
Enterprise biometric security options increase with new partnerships
Several companies in the biometric space have announced new channel and distribution partnerships. Hummingbirds AI joined the Panasonic XCELERATE software application developer program, Secret Double Octopus (SDO) has partnered with financial advisory services company PwC India, and BIO-key entered a distribution partnership with Israel-based Multipoint GROUP.
IDnow joins IATA accelerator program
Identity proofing platform IDnow has announced its participation in the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Accelerate@IATA 2022 accelerator program.
The move will enable the company to collaborate with IATA and its members on projects at the intersection of identity proofing and digital identity.
More specifically, IDnow will develop solutions to make flying more seamless and low-touch for passengers while lowering fraud risks for airlines.
“We understand that in the modern air travel industry, digital identities have a huge potential to shape a whole new traveler experience,” comments Michael A. Binner, director of a digital identity at IDnow.
According to the executive, a digital ID can create a more seamless and low-touch experience for passengers and offer a GDPR-compliant solution for storing and sharing biometric pictures for airports and other players.
IDnow joins the IATA accelerator program weeks after signing an agreement with PayRemit to provide its customers with automated identity verification with selfie biometrics for onboarding.
Beauty maybe be skin deep, but AI finds revenue on the face’s surface
A Taiwanese AI algorithm maker knows the value of the mind behind a face. The company says its software can perform virtual fashion try-ons and parse a consumer’s personality with the same selfie.
Perfect Corp. last week pushed a new AI and augmented reality makeup app and a fashion industry tie-in that could seed the market for high-end algorithmic social aspiration. In August, the company went down-market with a beard try-on product.
None of that is to take away from Perfect’s July decision to start selling the AI Personality Finder. It is a combination of facial-feature mapping and rudimentary psychological data that allegedly tells people not only how emotionally attractive they are, but also, what products to use to increase their visual likability.
At least in the United States, Perfect typically sells to fashion and makeup companies, but it also partners with some firms for their mutual marketing benefit.
For instance, the software firm has created a try-on app for toothpaste maker Colgate that reportedly will show people how much brighter their teeth would be by using a Colgate product.
A selfie and a little measure of insecurity are all that someone needs.
A day later, Perfect said it was working with Nolcha Shows on New York Fashion Week (September 9 to 14), a top appointment on many social calendars. Nolcha, a fashion events promoter, has added try-on features to some segments of the show via its YouCam Makeup app.
Then there is Perfect’s Personality Finder, a subscription service sold to vendors for use by adults and children. It purports to be a biometric recognition algorithm based on the idea that certain faces belong to certain kinds of minds.
The app could raise eyebrows the way that emotion recognition algorithms have done.
Calumino raises over $10M to scale thermal sensor platform, reach new use cases
Australia-based thermal sensor and AI developer Calumino has raised $10.3 million in a Series A funding round to scale up its intelligent thermal sensing platform. The company says its platform can be used to detect human presence, as well as activity and environmental hazards.
The funding round was led by Celesta Capital and Taronga Ventures, with several additional participants, Egis Technology notable among them as a biometrics and authentication software vendor.
Calumino says its technology fills a gap between the intrusiveness of IP cameras and the low performance of motion sensors. Its thermal sensing can map individuals within an environment, and detect human activity and posture.
The company sees applications in include smart building management, pest control, safety and security, healthcare, and other fields.
Calumino formed a strategic partnership with a Mitsubishi Electric subsidiary to market a pest control product in Japan.
“We are incredibly excited about this partnership and plan to roll this product out globally with our partners,” states Marek Steffanson, founder and CEO of Calumino. “No other technology can differentiate between humans and rodents reliably, in darkness, affordably, intelligently, and with very low data bandwidth — but this application is just the beginning. Our technology is creating an entirely new space in the market and we are incredibly grateful to our investors for their support as we continue to scale production and enable the next generation of intelligent sensing to solve important problems.”
Calumino plans to invest the funding in expanding its application base and addressing new use cases. Some of the funds will go towards research and development, and the company plans to open new offices in Europe, Taiwan, Japan, and the U.S.
TikTok says physical biometrics stay on users’ devices, keystroke logs do not
It was difficult to see social media executives testifying before a U.S. Senate committee and not think about the numerous previous examples of a seemingly impervious slate of industry executives trying to look happy about their appearance.
The tobacco executives appearing to assure the nation that smoking is a fine and patriotic thing to do is a good example and one that the social media executives might want to avoid thinking about.
Two chief privacy officers, Neal Mohan of YouTube and Chris Cox of Meta; TikTok chief operating officer Vanessa Pappas and Twitter General Manager of Consumer Product Jay Sullivan were there to try to assure the Senate that their platforms do not harm national security.
Trade publication TechCrunch reported on the event and paid particular attention to how Pappas handled questions about TikTok’s last year changed its privacy policy to say the company reserved the right to harvest facial images, fingerprints and other biometric identifiers of its U.S. subscribers.
Asked about it directly, Pappas said TikTok does not collect any biometrics capable of identifying someone, according to TechCrunch. Data collected was for enhancing content, like automated masks, and stays on the user’s device.
Pappas was also asked about whether TikTok captures users’ keystrokes, which can also be used as a biometric identifier. She responded that the company does not collect the content of what is typed, leaving open the question of its potential use as a behavioral biometric.
At another point, Mohan and Cox were asked why their platforms were slow to do something about content that was feeding violent sentiment in the United Sates. There not being a complimentary response to that question, the executives talked about how they handle similar problems today, according to trade publication Engadget.
These Weeks’ News by Categories
Access Control:
- Biometric access control options grow with new partnership, launches and integrations
- Biometric authentication use in US businesses tripled over 3 years to tackle cyber threats
- Suprema’s latest face biometric access control terminal offers new data security controls
- Alcatraz AI plays on its Bulgarian connections for $25m series A
- Identos builds Verifiable Credentials into updated federated digital ID API
- Embedding digital identity in the Jyväskylä Smart City Project
Consumer Electronics:
- Fingerprint biometric authentication for incognito browsing being added to Chrome
- Apple seeks patent for a way to turn iPhone screens into cameras
- Biometric vehicle cabin monitoring promises safer occupants
- Facial recognition coming to Lincoln Corsair as partnerships formed for automotive biometrics
- Ghana pauses early block on mobile subscribers as biometric SIM registration draws criticism
- Fingerprint biometrics still reign in consumer electronics, but Android facing forward
Mobile Biometrics:
- Indian police deploy portable fingerprint biometric scanners and app to ID suspects
- Veriff partners with mobile developer as selfie biometrics use grows for payments, deliveries
- TikTok says physical biometrics stay on users’ devices, keystroke logs do not
- New Zealand plans to introduce mDLs, eventually
- Selfie biometrics from Veridas, FacePhi, iDenfy deployed for banking, car rentals
- iProov contributes face biometrics to consortium piloting payments with EU digital ID wallet
- Precision Biometric, Crunchfish to pilot mobile, offline retail payments in regulatory sandbox
- Beauty maybe be skin deep, but AI finds revenue on the face’s surface
- Biometric bank service access grows with Indonesian deal, Seamfix platform expansion
Financial Services:
- Tag gets Mastercard OK, deploys Zwipe’s biometric pay platform
- Fast e-commerce settlement play with selfie, behavioral biometrics pulls in $51.5M
- Veriff partners with mobile developer as selfie biometrics use grows for payments, deliveries
- Aadhaar biometrics considered for expansion toward non-banking financial firms
- Pakistan disburses over $100M in flood relief via biometric ID
- Governments should center utility, trust and inclusion in digital ID to support fintech: panel
- Selfie biometrics from Veridas, FacePhi, iDenfy deployed for banking, car rentals
- iProov contributes face biometrics to consortium piloting payments with EU digital ID wallet
- Precision Biometric, Crunchfish to pilot mobile, offline retail payments in regulatory sandbox
- Looking back at spring digital ID challenge, FDIC and FinCEN find familiar shortcomings
Civil / National ID:
- Response time of Philippines’ digital ID portal for transport recovering
- Digitalization moves forward in India with Aadhaar biometrics for more gov services online
- Advocates still see a lot of danger for individuals using government digital IDs
- Dominican Republic prepares ground for biometric passport project take-off
- Nigeria reaches 90M digital ID registrations as database capacity issue looms
- Biometrics integration, consortium promise easier secure online transactions in Europe
- Why we support International Identity Day
- Almost a third of UK employers believe loyalty cards are acceptable right to work ID
- Colombia’s biometric digital ID surpasses 500K applications as govt pushes digital version
- India claims to effectively meet SDG16.9 of legal ID for all, expands authentication methods
- Aadhaar biometrics considered for expansion toward non-banking financial firms
- New Zealand plans to introduce mDLs, eventually
- Pakistan disburses over $100M in flood relief via biometric ID
- New handheld device from Regula offers quick digital ID document verification
- Fintech, mDLs and digital ID could be Apple’s ticket to Microsoft-like universality
- Ghana pauses early block on mobile subscribers as biometric SIM registration draws criticism
- Jamaica to issue free birth certificates ahead of national digital ID enrollment drive
- ID Day coalition grows by 45 percent, new slogan adopted
- NADRA pairs with 1Link to introduce digital payments platform for financial inclusion
- UAE launches new generation biometric passport, Afghanistan to up processing capacity
Government Services & Elections:
- US state lawmakers look at biometrics for voting, say it’s just not ready
- Nigeria commission explains removal of voters from biometric registry and fends off rumors
- Ekemp’s Liberian biometric voter card contract rejected by review; verbal sparring ensues
- Biometrics feature part of Brazil’s integrity test for voting machines
- Nigeria finds more ineligible registries in latest biometric deduplication round
- US gets involved after Ekemp tip of Liberian biometric voter card contract win
- Response time of Philippines’ digital ID portal for transport recovering
- Serpro signs up Persona for Brazilian biometric ID verification database
- Dominican Republic prepares ground for biometric passport project take-off
- Ekemp’s Liberian biometric voter card contract rejected by review; verbal sparring ensues
- Spain deploying biometrics at Morocco land border for EES
- Almost a third of UK employers believe loyalty cards are acceptable right-to-work ID
- Governments should center utility, trust and inclusion in digital ID to support fintech: panel
- We’re talking, says Philippines government about biometric security provider
Facial Recognition:
- Face biometrics deployments and solutions unveiled on four continents
- EU parliament majority is now in favor of banning AI surveillance in public
- The thing most people fear about facial recognition spreading from China
- US customs agency finds its face biometrics program is meeting expectations
- Workshop on face image quality added to IFPC event as biometrics standard progresses
- PayByFace expansion brings retail biometrics to South Africa, India, UAE, US
- Hospitality supplier adopts Clear’s biometric service for check-ins
- China surveillance policies follow facial recognition spread along Silk Road: activists
- Australia readies for modified, more expensive two-step Idemia biometric airport SmartGates
- Suprema’s latest face biometric access control terminal offers new data security controls
- Clearview facial recognition used to exonerate suspect on trial over traffic fatality
- UN Human Rights Office warns biometrics and digital ID among surveillance tools raising the risk
- Biometrics integration, and consortium promise easier secure online transactions in Europe
- Comments sought on working draft of ISO face biometrics fairness testing standard
- Facial analysis is still biased, press still confusing it with facial recognition
- Star Alliance expects biometrics use by more member airlines; Idemia updates PreCheck enrollment
- PixLab launches face biometrics authentication framework for web applications
- Prominent facial recognition researcher scraped videos of trans people, left dataset exposed
- Idemia claims fairest facial verification among most accurate algorithms in latest NIST test
- Days of facial recognition discussions uncover a tricky future for policymakers
- Campaign groups demand new London police boss end facial recognition use on the first day in a job
- Canadian judge sends face biometrics use by govt in refugee claim to review
- Pakistan safe city project stalls with nearly 1K facial recognition cameras not functioning
- Rank One stands out in the NIST test of image quality assessment for face biometrics
- Paravision face biometrics contract with US Air Force expands
- Wicket, CyberLink, Synaptics form partnerships for biometrics at the edge
- EDRi, Statewatch call for ban of EU-wide police facial recognition system
Fingerprint Recognition:
- Fingerprint Cards gets its biometric sensors in new round of laptops, smartphones
- Tag gets Mastercard OK, deploys Zwipe’s biometric pay platform
- India turns to fingerprint biometric liveness to stem spoof attacks on Aadhaar payments
- Fingerprint biometric authentication for incognito browsing being added to Chrome
- New biometric cards partnerships for Idex Biometrics, Sentry Enterprises
- Big court date coming up fast for a BIPA case involving statute of limitations
- Fingerprint biometrics still reign in consumer electronics, but Android facing forward
Voice Biometrics:
- Deepfakes detected via reverse modeling of the vocal tract are ‘comically’ non-human
- Daon’s voice biometrics launch on Genesys enterprise cloud marketplace
Liveness Detection:
- Onfido, ComplyCube upgrade biometric solutions for faster, easier KYC checks
- India turns to fingerprint biometric liveness to stem spoof attacks on Aadhaar payments
- Serpro signs up Persona for Brazilian biometric ID verification database
- Oz Forensics launches partner program to ease biometric liveness adoption by businesses
Biometrics Industry Events
Identity Week America: Oct 4, 2022 — Oct 5, 2022
Authenticate 2022: Oct 17, 2022 — Oct 19, 2022
IFINTEC Finance Technologies Conference: Oct 18, 2022 — Oct 19, 2022
Digital Identity and Digital Onboarding for Banking 3rd Annual: Oct 20, 2022 — Oct 21, 2022
Money 20/20 USA: Oct 23, 2022 — Oct 26, 2022
Biometrics Institute Annual Congress: Oct 26, 2022 — Oct 27, 2022
International Face Performance Conference (IFPC) 2022: Nov 15, 2022 — Nov 17, 2022
6th Border Management and Identity Conference (6th BMIC): Dec 7, 2022 — Dec 9, 2022
MISC
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