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India's new government forges ahead with biometric registration
NEWS/COMMENT ...Continued from page 3 Hitachi’s VeinID is already used by banks for password replacement, single sign on and ATM machines in Japan, North America and Europe. In Australia, the St George Bank is reported to be readying the facility for iPhone-owning mobile customers to log into their accounts with their fingerprint when Apple rolls out its iOS 8 operating system, taking advantage of the handset’s Touch ID technology. In Nigeria, commercial banks in Lagos were expected to begin collating customers’ biometrics in the pilot stage of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) project but a Sun News report indicates that multiple issues have delayed implementation.
defence
US military upgrades ABIS and trials biometric glasses
T
he latest version of the biometrics database at the US Department of Defense is moving into the final testing phase before implementing a fully upgraded system. The Department of Defense Automated Biometric Identification System (DOD ABIS) uses fingerprint, palm print, iris, and facial data to identify enemies. The upgrade to DOD ABIS 1.2 is intended to provide more record storage and to process more daily transactions. US defence authorities are also researching the potential contribution of non-traditional modalities to existing DARPA Active Authentication research. More information at http://1.usa.gov/Wmg0yw
education
Biometric tech meets further resistance in the US education sector
B
iometric technology continues to meet resistance in the US education sector, following Florida’s ban on the collection of biometric data from school children. The University of Georgia (UGA)’s news publication Red and Black reports that biometric building security systems, which had been operated by hand scan since the 1970s, have been replaced on hygiene grounds. To access dormitories, dining halls and exercise facilities, UGA students used to place their hands over a biometric scanning system. Now students will use their student ID and enter a pin number 12
Biometric Technology Today
to gain entrance. Some students have come to associate the security system with the spread of germs, as hundreds of people come through UGA buildings daily, reports Red and Black. In Kansas, US legislators are reviewing state educators’ plans to fingerprint all teachers, following privacy concerns.
india
India’s new government forges ahead with biometric registration
I
ndia’s new national government has allocated nearly $340m to continue with the Aadhaar registration process,
according to The Economic Times. 700m Indian residents have been enrolled under the scheme and the plan is to enrol 100m more. 6Wresearch points out that the demand for biometric devices in India is expected to accelerate further with the introduction of biometric authentication systems in government pilot schemes such as biometric cards in National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Additionally, Bank of Punjab has launched a new programme to execute the auto disbursement subsidy through biometric cards. 6Wresearch’s report ‘India Biometrics Market (Single and Multi-Modal segments)’ registered annual shipments of more than 350,000 fingerprint and iris scanner units, by more than 40 vendors.
COMMENT Around this time last year, Apple turbocharged the biometric sector with its announcement of fingerprint recognition on the iPhone 5S. Many industry observers have seen a massive rise in activity and interest in mobile biometrics since Apple’s Autumn 2013 announcement. Indeed, the adoption and use of biometrics on mobile devices was the most significant development in the biometrics world over the past 12 months, according to The Biometrics Institute 2014 Industry Survey findings. Apple’s latest launch, of the Apple Watch in early September 2014, looks set to drive the next big thing – wearables. Deloitte predicted that the market for wearables would reach 10m units in 2014 and generate $3bn revenues but many pundits forecast that this sector has the potential to grow much bigger. The hope must be that the Apple Watch will again drive both biometric technology development and acceptance. Apple Watch biometric sensors will work with the health and fitness tracking applications as well as being capable of transmitting the wearer’s heart rate to other Watch wearers. Wearable technology that takes biometric measurements from the wearer and transmits them to mobile phones is focussed at present on healthcare applications, but this data could just as easily be the basis of, possibly multifactor, authentication systems. Multiple biometric modalities lend themselves to wearables and their associated mobile device apps, and Apple itself appears to have been looking beyond static fingerprint recognition, with a patent application for
moving fingerprint just the latest in a run of biometric-related patent applications. Other big players are also considering their biometric options – Samsung tweeted a hint that it is considering iris or retina scanning – while new entrants to the market may come out of the left field. For example, IriTech plans to release the ‘world’s first iris recognition-enabled smartwatch’, FiDELYS, by launching a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo. So far, when the technology and security industries have talked about “wearables” the emphasis has tended to be on items that fall into the camp of technology gadgets. In the real world, ‘wearables’ are more commonly known as ‘clothes’ and there have been interesting moves to embed biometric sensors into clothes. Fashion design firm Ralph Lauren has partnered with OMsignal to launch a clothing collection that will feature sensors knitted into the core of the product to read biological and physiological information. The Ralph Lauren Polo Tech shirt is intended to transcend the needs of elite athletes who will use the shirts first, to promote wellbeing for mere mortals too. Canadian-based OMsignal’s platform delivers physiological data directly to the users via an app on their smartphone. In the future Internet of Things, biometric sensors on wearables need not be limited to simply transmitting data to mobile phone apps, although that would be a useful alternative to on-board biometric data capture, such as fingerprint sensors on phones. They might also transmit wearer’s biometric data direct to access control or payment systems as well as to medical kit and gym equipment. Tracey Caldwell
September 2014
defence
US military upgrades ABIS and trials biometric glasses
T
he latest version of the biometrics database at the US Department of Defense is moving into the final testing phase before implementing a fully upgraded system. The Department of Defense Automated Biometric Identification System (DOD ABIS) uses fingerprint, palm print, iris, and facial data to identify enemies. The upgrade to DOD ABIS 1.2 is intended to provide more record storage and to process more daily transactions. US defence authorities are also researching the potential contribution of non-traditional modalities to existing DARPA Active Authentication research. More information at http://1.usa.gov/Wmg0yw
education
Biometric tech meets further resistance in the US education sector
B
iometric technology continues to meet resistance in the US education sector, following Florida’s ban on the collection of biometric data from school children. The University of Georgia (UGA)’s news publication Red and Black reports that biometric building security systems, which had been operated by hand scan since the 1970s, have been replaced on hygiene grounds. To access dormitories, dining halls and exercise facilities, UGA students used to place their hands over a biometric scanning system. Now students will use their student ID and enter a pin number 12
Biometric Technology Today
to gain entrance. Some students have come to associate the security system with the spread of germs, as hundreds of people come through UGA buildings daily, reports Red and Black. In Kansas, US legislators are reviewing state educators’ plans to fingerprint all teachers, following privacy concerns.
india
India’s new government forges ahead with biometric registration
I
ndia’s new national government has allocated nearly $340m to continue with the Aadhaar registration process,
according to The Economic Times. 700m Indian residents have been enrolled under the scheme and the plan is to enrol 100m more. 6Wresearch points out that the demand for biometric devices in India is expected to accelerate further with the introduction of biometric authentication systems in government pilot schemes such as biometric cards in National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Additionally, Bank of Punjab has launched a new programme to execute the auto disbursement subsidy through biometric cards. 6Wresearch’s report ‘India Biometrics Market (Single and Multi-Modal segments)’ registered annual shipments of more than 350,000 fingerprint and iris scanner units, by more than 40 vendors.
COMMENT Around this time last year, Apple turbocharged the biometric sector with its announcement of fingerprint recognition on the iPhone 5S. Many industry observers have seen a massive rise in activity and interest in mobile biometrics since Apple’s Autumn 2013 announcement. Indeed, the adoption and use of biometrics on mobile devices was the most significant development in the biometrics world over the past 12 months, according to The Biometrics Institute 2014 Industry Survey findings. Apple’s latest launch, of the Apple Watch in early September 2014, looks set to drive the next big thing – wearables. Deloitte predicted that the market for wearables would reach 10m units in 2014 and generate $3bn revenues but many pundits forecast that this sector has the potential to grow much bigger. The hope must be that the Apple Watch will again drive both biometric technology development and acceptance. Apple Watch biometric sensors will work with the health and fitness tracking applications as well as being capable of transmitting the wearer’s heart rate to other Watch wearers. Wearable technology that takes biometric measurements from the wearer and transmits them to mobile phones is focussed at present on healthcare applications, but this data could just as easily be the basis of, possibly multifactor, authentication systems. Multiple biometric modalities lend themselves to wearables and their associated mobile device apps, and Apple itself appears to have been looking beyond static fingerprint recognition, with a patent application for
moving fingerprint just the latest in a run of biometric-related patent applications. Other big players are also considering their biometric options – Samsung tweeted a hint that it is considering iris or retina scanning – while new entrants to the market may come out of the left field. For example, IriTech plans to release the ‘world’s first iris recognition-enabled smartwatch’, FiDELYS, by launching a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo. So far, when the technology and security industries have talked about “wearables” the emphasis has tended to be on items that fall into the camp of technology gadgets. In the real world, ‘wearables’ are more commonly known as ‘clothes’ and there have been interesting moves to embed biometric sensors into clothes. Fashion design firm Ralph Lauren has partnered with OMsignal to launch a clothing collection that will feature sensors knitted into the core of the product to read biological and physiological information. The Ralph Lauren Polo Tech shirt is intended to transcend the needs of elite athletes who will use the shirts first, to promote wellbeing for mere mortals too. Canadian-based OMsignal’s platform delivers physiological data directly to the users via an app on their smartphone. In the future Internet of Things, biometric sensors on wearables need not be limited to simply transmitting data to mobile phone apps, although that would be a useful alternative to on-board biometric data capture, such as fingerprint sensors on phones. They might also transmit wearer’s biometric data direct to access control or payment systems as well as to medical kit and gym equipment. Tracey Caldwell
September 2014