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EC BEAT platform goes open source
NEWS/COMMENT
NEC develops acoustic ear biometrics
N
EC has developed biometric technology that uses sound to distinguish ear cavity shape. Within about a second it measures acoustic characteristics determined by the shape of the ear, which is unique for each person, using an earphone with a built-in microphone to collect earphone-generated sounds as they resonate within ear cavities. It says this method achieves greater than 99% accuracy. “Since the new technology does not require particular actions such as scanning a part of the body over an authentication device, it enables a natural way of conducting continuous authentication, even during movement and while performing work, simply by wearing an earphone with a built-in microphone to listen to the sounds within ears,” says Shigeki Yamagata, general manager, Information and Media Processing Laboratories, NEC. NEC plans to commercialise the technology within 2018 in a wide range of applications, including the prevention of identity fraud in operations related to safety and security, such as in maintenance, management, security of critical infrastructure, in ensuring confidentiality of wireless communications and telephone calls, and in voice guidance services.
Ear acoustic patterns vary from person to person.
EC BEAT platform goes open source
T
he Biometrics Evaluation and Testing (BEAT) platform is now available for download as an open source project, under the Affero GNU GPL version 3. The BEAT project is funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) as a European computing e-infrastructure for Open Science proposing a solution for open access, scientific information sharing and re-use including data and source code while protecting privacy and confidentiality.
12
Biometric Technology Today
After four years of development, the project totals 80,000 lines of code. It makes heavy use of other open source projects such as Django and Twisted and builds on these frameworks to create the experience available through the web application. BEAT allows online access to experimentation and testing in computational science. Data from different experiments can be easily compared and searched. The platform also provides an attestation mechanism for reports such as scientific papers, technical documents or certifications.
The BEAT platform.
access control
Microsoft Windows Hello biometric login now works with websites
M
icrosoft Windows Hello, its biometric authentication mechanism for Windows 10, will now work to provide biometric logins for websites. The Edge browser will be the first to support this. Windows Hello supports fingerprint, face and iris recognition and incorporates liveness detection for face recognition. USAA Bank will be among the first companies to use Windows Hello for websites. USAA customers will be able to log in using either fingerprints or retinal scans.
COMMENT As governments throughout the world redeploy biometric data for fraud and security purposes, or consider doing so, the UK Biometric Commissioner has sounded a warning note. In Nigeria the government has tapped into the automatic biometric identification system of the Nigerian banks to uncover widespread fraud in the public sector payroll, finding and eliminating 23,306 nonexistent public servants, saving 10.5m euros a month in salary payments. Meanwhile in India politicians have rejected amendments to the Aadhaar Bill that would have allowed a person to opt out of the database system and would have ensured the Aadhaar number is not used for purposes other than those for which it was provided – ie government benefits –paving the way for the use of the biometric database of nearly a billion people for ‘national security’. Alastair MacGregor, the UK Biometric Commissioner whose three-year tenure was due to end in March, used his annual report to once again raise concerns about the retention of facial images by English police and the use to which biometric material is being put. Apart from the issues raised by misuse of
biometrics he points out that failure to address this now could have long-term repercussions on public acceptance of the technology. He points out that some of the ethical, regulatory and other issues that arise in connection with these new technologies have been discussed at specialist conferences and seminars in recent months, but adds: “ In my view, however, it is important that those issues are soon also addressed by Government and by a wider public. As the House of Commons Select Committee observed in the Report of March 2015: ‘We have seen in the past how public trust in emerging technologies may be severely damaged in the absence of full and frank debate’.” The benefits of biometric technology for addressing fraud on public funds are undeniable. The successes reported in Nigeria – and also in Ireland where, Independent.ie reports, facial recognition analysis helped identify a woman who stole over E100,000 by using her sister’s social welfare card to collect her benefits for 12 years – are clear. Yet governments stand to lose public confidence in the use of the technology before they have had a chance to reap many of its benefits. Tracey Caldwell
April 2016
NEC develops acoustic ear biometrics
N
EC has developed biometric technology that uses sound to distinguish ear cavity shape. Within about a second it measures acoustic characteristics determined by the shape of the ear, which is unique for each person, using an earphone with a built-in microphone to collect earphone-generated sounds as they resonate within ear cavities. It says this method achieves greater than 99% accuracy. “Since the new technology does not require particular actions such as scanning a part of the body over an authentication device, it enables a natural way of conducting continuous authentication, even during movement and while performing work, simply by wearing an earphone with a built-in microphone to listen to the sounds within ears,” says Shigeki Yamagata, general manager, Information and Media Processing Laboratories, NEC. NEC plans to commercialise the technology within 2018 in a wide range of applications, including the prevention of identity fraud in operations related to safety and security, such as in maintenance, management, security of critical infrastructure, in ensuring confidentiality of wireless communications and telephone calls, and in voice guidance services.
Ear acoustic patterns vary from person to person.
EC BEAT platform goes open source
T
he Biometrics Evaluation and Testing (BEAT) platform is now available for download as an open source project, under the Affero GNU GPL version 3. The BEAT project is funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) as a European computing e-infrastructure for Open Science proposing a solution for open access, scientific information sharing and re-use including data and source code while protecting privacy and confidentiality.
12
Biometric Technology Today
After four years of development, the project totals 80,000 lines of code. It makes heavy use of other open source projects such as Django and Twisted and builds on these frameworks to create the experience available through the web application. BEAT allows online access to experimentation and testing in computational science. Data from different experiments can be easily compared and searched. The platform also provides an attestation mechanism for reports such as scientific papers, technical documents or certifications.
The BEAT platform.
access control
Microsoft Windows Hello biometric login now works with websites
M
icrosoft Windows Hello, its biometric authentication mechanism for Windows 10, will now work to provide biometric logins for websites. The Edge browser will be the first to support this. Windows Hello supports fingerprint, face and iris recognition and incorporates liveness detection for face recognition. USAA Bank will be among the first companies to use Windows Hello for websites. USAA customers will be able to log in using either fingerprints or retinal scans.
COMMENT As governments throughout the world redeploy biometric data for fraud and security purposes, or consider doing so, the UK Biometric Commissioner has sounded a warning note. In Nigeria the government has tapped into the automatic biometric identification system of the Nigerian banks to uncover widespread fraud in the public sector payroll, finding and eliminating 23,306 nonexistent public servants, saving 10.5m euros a month in salary payments. Meanwhile in India politicians have rejected amendments to the Aadhaar Bill that would have allowed a person to opt out of the database system and would have ensured the Aadhaar number is not used for purposes other than those for which it was provided – ie government benefits –paving the way for the use of the biometric database of nearly a billion people for ‘national security’. Alastair MacGregor, the UK Biometric Commissioner whose three-year tenure was due to end in March, used his annual report to once again raise concerns about the retention of facial images by English police and the use to which biometric material is being put. Apart from the issues raised by misuse of
biometrics he points out that failure to address this now could have long-term repercussions on public acceptance of the technology. He points out that some of the ethical, regulatory and other issues that arise in connection with these new technologies have been discussed at specialist conferences and seminars in recent months, but adds: “ In my view, however, it is important that those issues are soon also addressed by Government and by a wider public. As the House of Commons Select Committee observed in the Report of March 2015: ‘We have seen in the past how public trust in emerging technologies may be severely damaged in the absence of full and frank debate’.” The benefits of biometric technology for addressing fraud on public funds are undeniable. The successes reported in Nigeria – and also in Ireland where, Independent.ie reports, facial recognition analysis helped identify a woman who stole over E100,000 by using her sister’s social welfare card to collect her benefits for 12 years – are clear. Yet governments stand to lose public confidence in the use of the technology before they have had a chance to reap many of its benefits. Tracey Caldwell
April 2016