- Email: [email protected]
Student backlash forces UCLA to drop facial ID
TECHNOLOGY
www.biometricstoday.com
ISSN 0969-4765 March 2020
virus control
Contents
Biometrics firms help in the response to Coronavirus
T
he global Coronavirus health scare has prompted a number of biometric tech firms to take action to help combat its spread. Germany’s DERMALOG has developed what’s claimed to be the first biometric border control system with integrated fever detection. This enables infected travellers to be detected immediately at border entrance, in order to contain epidemics. The DERMALOG system features a special fever camera, which automatically measures the temperature of travellers. It is being introduced in Thailand, one of the countries principally affected by the Coronavirus, and was demonstrated in action at Bangkok’s Don Mueang international airport on 12 February. DERMALOG said: “The spread of Coronavirus shows that in today’s world of fast global travel, outbreaks of infectious diseases can cross national borders within the shortest time. From now on, the border control system in Don Mueang can capture not only fingerprints and faces, but also measures the body temperature of travellers. If someone with fever is detected, the border officer is automatically informed and can send the affected person for a health check.” In other moves, facial recognition firms in China – the start point of the virus – have been
enhancing their facial recognition systems in order to identify people wearing face masks, which are being worn by many people since the outbreak started. Among them, SenseTime has upgraded its facial recognition products to identify individuals from just their eyes and upper nose area, and has developed thermal imaging cameras that can identify people with a fever, according to the MailOnline. SenseTime’s algorithm scans 240 facial features to make a match, but can rely on scanning just those areas visible beyond a mask. SenseTime says this means companies can identify staff entering buildings without them needing to remove their mask. The solution has already been adopted by Korean IT services supplier LG CNS in place of its previous ID card system, according to the Korean Herald and ZDNet. The company is using it to identify staff across 26 entry points at its headquarters in Seoul. LG CNS said that the technology can identify a face, authenticate an employee and open an entry gate in around 0.3 seconds, with 99% accuracy whether the person is wearing a mask, glasses or make-up. It also does not require direct contact with the access device, reducing the risk of spreading any infection.
privacy
C
News Biometrics firms help in the response to Coronavirus
1
Student backlash forces UCLA to drop facial ID 1 London police chief makes plea for face recognition
2
Porsche cars get fingerprinted
3
Europe casts doubt on recognition systems in new strategy
3
NIST report on algo accuracy is ‘game-changer’ 11 Controversial firm Clearview gets hacked
12
Features Challenge of biometric security for banks 5 The different biometric authentication systems used by banks face multiple threats, from fingerprint scams and deepfake image fraud, to voice and presentation attacks. Stuart Dobbie of Callsign explores what the most secure biometric authentication option truly is, and reviews what financial institutions can do to protect their customers and themselves – including offering multiple levels of authentication and ‘dialling up’ or down the protection as needed. How facial recognition is helping fight child sexual abuse
7
Facial recognition is one of the most controversial technologies used today. But as well as its role in mass surveillance, it’s used as a positive force in many police investigations, perhaps most importantly to support those battling against online child sexual abuse (CSA). Johann Hofmann of Griffeye describes how facial recognition is being deployed day-to-day to help hard-pressed investigators sift through huge volumes of horrific data and evidence, to share information and pinpoint visual clues, in order to identify victims and criminals.
Regulars
Student backlash forces UCLA to drop facial ID
alifornian Ivy League university UCLA has bowed to pressure from privacy campaigners and students, and cancelled its plans to use facial recognition technology on its campus. UCLA first announced last year that it wanted to introduce facial ID software across its CCTV camera network, to prevent offences like burglary, vandalism and hate crimes. That made
TODAY
biometric
UCLA the first US university to actively plan using facial surveillance on campus, according to privacy campaigners. But the move provoked heavy criticism from students, staff and campaign groups. On 29 January, UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, said implementing the technology “would present a major breach of students’ privacy and Continued on page 2...
Events Calendar
3
News in Brief
4
Product News
4
Company News
4
Comment
12
Visit us @ www.biometricstoday.com
ISSN 0969-4765/20 © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This publication and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by Elsevier Ltd, and the following terms and conditions apply to their use:
Visit us @
Photocopying Single photocopies of single articles may be made for personal use as allowed by national copyright laws. Permission of the publisher and payment of a fee is required for all other photocopying, including multiple or systematic copying, copying for advertising or promotional purposes, resale, and all forms of document delivery. Special rates are available for educational institutions that wish to make photocopies for non-profit eduwww.membrane-technology.com cational classroom use.
NEWS
Editorial Office: Elsevier Ltd The Boulevard Langford Lane Kidlington Oxford OX5 1GB, UK Tel: +44 1865 843239 Email: [email protected] Website: www.biometricstoday.com Publishing Director: Sarah Jenkins Editor: Tim Ring Email: [email protected] Production Support Manager: Lin Lucas Email: [email protected] Subscription Information An annual subscription to Biometric Technology Today includes 10 issues and online access for up to 5 users. Subscriptions run for 12 months, from the date payment is received. More information: www.elsevier.com/journals/institutional/biometric-technology-today/0969-4765 This newsletter and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by Elsevier Ltd, and the following terms and conditions apply to their use: Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier Global Rights Department, PO Box 800, Oxford OX5 1DX, UK; phone: +44 1865 843830, fax: +44 1865 853333, email: [email protected]. You may also contact Global Rights directly through Elsevier’s home page (www.elsevier.com), selecting first ‘Support & contact’, then ‘Copyright & permission’. In the USA, users may clear permissions and make payments through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA; phone: +1 978 750 8400, fax: +1 978 750 4744, and in the UK through the Copyright Licensing Agency Rapid Clearance Service (CLARCS), 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP, UK; phone: +44 (0)20 7631 5555; fax: +44 (0)20 7631 5500. Other countries may have a local reprographic rights agency for payments. Derivative Works Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution. Permission of the Publisher is required for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. Electronic Storage or Usage Permission of the Publisher is required to store or use electronically any material contained in this publication, including any article or part of an article. Except as outlined above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the Publisher. Address permissions requests to: Elsevier Science Global Rights Department, at the mail, fax and email addresses noted above. Notice No responsibility is assumed by the Publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made.Although all advertising material is expected to conform to ethical (medical) standards, inclusion in this publication does not constitute a guarantee or endorsement of the quality or value of such product or of the claims made of it by its manufacturer.
12985 Digitally Produced by Mayfield Press (Oxford) Ltd
2
Biometric Technology Today
...Continued from front page make students feel unsafe on a campus they are supposed to call home”. It added: “Any security measure that creates a more hostile campus environment is counterproductive, and UCLA should not even consider engaging in a practice that involves collecting invasive amounts of data on its population of over 45,000 students and 50,000 employees.” Bowing to the pressure, on 18 February UCLA’s administrative vice chancellor, Michael Beck, confirmed the U-turn in a brief letter to the privacy campaign group, Fight for the Future. “UCLA will not pursue the use of facial recognition software technology,” Beck said. “We have determined that the potential benefits are limited and are vastly outweighed by the concerns of the campus community.” The pullout came ahead of a ‘national day of action’ on 2 March, organised by Fight for the Future, aimed at banning facial recognition from colleges across the US. And the campaign group hailed UCLA’s retreat as “a major victory for the movement against facial recognition”. Its deputy director Evan Greer said: “Let this be a warning to other schools: if you think you can get away with experimenting on your students and employees with this invasive technology, you’re wrong. We won’t stop organising until facial recognition is banned on every campus.” Fight for the Future said that over 50 other leading US colleges – including MIT, Harvard, Brown and Columbia – have already stated they have no plans to use facial recognition. In its battle against UCLA, the campaign group used Amazon’s controversial Rekognition facial ID software to compare photos of UCLA student basketball and football players, and faculty members, against a mugshot database. Out of 400 faces scanned, 58 photos were falsely matched. “The vast majority of incorrect matches were of people of colour,” the campaigners said. One of those wrongly matched was Kimberlé Crenshaw, a prominent UCLA law professor, who commented: “Facial recognition has no place on college campuses. I’m glad the administration listened to the community and is abandoning this plan. Other school administrators should follow suit. Racially biased surveillance does not make our communities safer.” UCLA student activist Matthew William Richard, vice chair of the Campus Safety Alliance, added: “We are beyond excited by the potential agenda-setting a top school like UCLA might bring about nationwide through the prohibition of facial recognition software and through listening to the students, workers, faculty and local community. We hope other universities see that they will not get away with these policies.”
law enforcement
London police chief makes plea for face recognition
L
ondon’s police chief, Dame Cressida Dick, has issued an outspoken defence of her force’s use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology. In a speech last month, she branded critics of the technology as “highly inaccurate or highly ill-informed” and said concerns about people’s images passing through LFR were “much, much smaller” than the need to stop citizens “being knifed in the chest”. But the Commissioner also told her audience at a security event on 24 February that she was in favour of proper regulation of LFR and other AI technology. She said: “Trust is so important. It would be very helpful to have some kind of code of conduct for the use of tech in policing. New technology, however it is used in policing, may well require the law to keep up and to change, of course this needs to be debated.” However, the Commissioner’s strongest words were reserved for the critics of LFR, following the Met Police’s introduction of the technology in January, with checks being carried out for short periods in specific locations with advanced warning. This rollout was branded as “alarming biometric mass surveillance” by Silkie Carlo, director of the privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, who said: “Never before have citizens been subjected to identity checks without suspicion, let alone on a mass scale. All the evidence shows this tech makes us less free and no safer.” In her speech, Dame Cressida hit back saying: “I and others have been making the case for the proportionate use of tech in policing. But right now the loudest voices in the debate seem to be the critics. Sometimes highly inaccurate or highly ill informed.” She added: “It is for critics to justify to the victims of crimes why police should not be allowed to use tech lawfully and proportionally to catch criminals.” Dialling up her attack, Dame Cressida said: “It is not for me and the police to decide where the boundary lies between security and privacy. But speaking as a member of public, I will be frank. In an age of Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, concern about my image and that of my fellow law-abiding citizens passing through LFR and not being stored, feels much, much smaller than my and the public’s vital expectation to be kept safe from a knife through the chest.”
March 2020
www.biometricstoday.com
ISSN 0969-4765 March 2020
virus control
Contents
Biometrics firms help in the response to Coronavirus
T
he global Coronavirus health scare has prompted a number of biometric tech firms to take action to help combat its spread. Germany’s DERMALOG has developed what’s claimed to be the first biometric border control system with integrated fever detection. This enables infected travellers to be detected immediately at border entrance, in order to contain epidemics. The DERMALOG system features a special fever camera, which automatically measures the temperature of travellers. It is being introduced in Thailand, one of the countries principally affected by the Coronavirus, and was demonstrated in action at Bangkok’s Don Mueang international airport on 12 February. DERMALOG said: “The spread of Coronavirus shows that in today’s world of fast global travel, outbreaks of infectious diseases can cross national borders within the shortest time. From now on, the border control system in Don Mueang can capture not only fingerprints and faces, but also measures the body temperature of travellers. If someone with fever is detected, the border officer is automatically informed and can send the affected person for a health check.” In other moves, facial recognition firms in China – the start point of the virus – have been
enhancing their facial recognition systems in order to identify people wearing face masks, which are being worn by many people since the outbreak started. Among them, SenseTime has upgraded its facial recognition products to identify individuals from just their eyes and upper nose area, and has developed thermal imaging cameras that can identify people with a fever, according to the MailOnline. SenseTime’s algorithm scans 240 facial features to make a match, but can rely on scanning just those areas visible beyond a mask. SenseTime says this means companies can identify staff entering buildings without them needing to remove their mask. The solution has already been adopted by Korean IT services supplier LG CNS in place of its previous ID card system, according to the Korean Herald and ZDNet. The company is using it to identify staff across 26 entry points at its headquarters in Seoul. LG CNS said that the technology can identify a face, authenticate an employee and open an entry gate in around 0.3 seconds, with 99% accuracy whether the person is wearing a mask, glasses or make-up. It also does not require direct contact with the access device, reducing the risk of spreading any infection.
privacy
C
News Biometrics firms help in the response to Coronavirus
1
Student backlash forces UCLA to drop facial ID 1 London police chief makes plea for face recognition
2
Porsche cars get fingerprinted
3
Europe casts doubt on recognition systems in new strategy
3
NIST report on algo accuracy is ‘game-changer’ 11 Controversial firm Clearview gets hacked
12
Features Challenge of biometric security for banks 5 The different biometric authentication systems used by banks face multiple threats, from fingerprint scams and deepfake image fraud, to voice and presentation attacks. Stuart Dobbie of Callsign explores what the most secure biometric authentication option truly is, and reviews what financial institutions can do to protect their customers and themselves – including offering multiple levels of authentication and ‘dialling up’ or down the protection as needed. How facial recognition is helping fight child sexual abuse
7
Facial recognition is one of the most controversial technologies used today. But as well as its role in mass surveillance, it’s used as a positive force in many police investigations, perhaps most importantly to support those battling against online child sexual abuse (CSA). Johann Hofmann of Griffeye describes how facial recognition is being deployed day-to-day to help hard-pressed investigators sift through huge volumes of horrific data and evidence, to share information and pinpoint visual clues, in order to identify victims and criminals.
Regulars
Student backlash forces UCLA to drop facial ID
alifornian Ivy League university UCLA has bowed to pressure from privacy campaigners and students, and cancelled its plans to use facial recognition technology on its campus. UCLA first announced last year that it wanted to introduce facial ID software across its CCTV camera network, to prevent offences like burglary, vandalism and hate crimes. That made
TODAY
biometric
UCLA the first US university to actively plan using facial surveillance on campus, according to privacy campaigners. But the move provoked heavy criticism from students, staff and campaign groups. On 29 January, UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, said implementing the technology “would present a major breach of students’ privacy and Continued on page 2...
Events Calendar
3
News in Brief
4
Product News
4
Company News
4
Comment
12
Visit us @ www.biometricstoday.com
ISSN 0969-4765/20 © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This publication and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by Elsevier Ltd, and the following terms and conditions apply to their use:
Visit us @
Photocopying Single photocopies of single articles may be made for personal use as allowed by national copyright laws. Permission of the publisher and payment of a fee is required for all other photocopying, including multiple or systematic copying, copying for advertising or promotional purposes, resale, and all forms of document delivery. Special rates are available for educational institutions that wish to make photocopies for non-profit eduwww.membrane-technology.com cational classroom use.
NEWS
Editorial Office: Elsevier Ltd The Boulevard Langford Lane Kidlington Oxford OX5 1GB, UK Tel: +44 1865 843239 Email: [email protected] Website: www.biometricstoday.com Publishing Director: Sarah Jenkins Editor: Tim Ring Email: [email protected] Production Support Manager: Lin Lucas Email: [email protected] Subscription Information An annual subscription to Biometric Technology Today includes 10 issues and online access for up to 5 users. Subscriptions run for 12 months, from the date payment is received. More information: www.elsevier.com/journals/institutional/biometric-technology-today/0969-4765 This newsletter and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by Elsevier Ltd, and the following terms and conditions apply to their use: Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier Global Rights Department, PO Box 800, Oxford OX5 1DX, UK; phone: +44 1865 843830, fax: +44 1865 853333, email: [email protected]. You may also contact Global Rights directly through Elsevier’s home page (www.elsevier.com), selecting first ‘Support & contact’, then ‘Copyright & permission’. In the USA, users may clear permissions and make payments through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA; phone: +1 978 750 8400, fax: +1 978 750 4744, and in the UK through the Copyright Licensing Agency Rapid Clearance Service (CLARCS), 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP, UK; phone: +44 (0)20 7631 5555; fax: +44 (0)20 7631 5500. Other countries may have a local reprographic rights agency for payments. Derivative Works Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution. Permission of the Publisher is required for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. Electronic Storage or Usage Permission of the Publisher is required to store or use electronically any material contained in this publication, including any article or part of an article. Except as outlined above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the Publisher. Address permissions requests to: Elsevier Science Global Rights Department, at the mail, fax and email addresses noted above. Notice No responsibility is assumed by the Publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made.Although all advertising material is expected to conform to ethical (medical) standards, inclusion in this publication does not constitute a guarantee or endorsement of the quality or value of such product or of the claims made of it by its manufacturer.
12985 Digitally Produced by Mayfield Press (Oxford) Ltd
2
Biometric Technology Today
...Continued from front page make students feel unsafe on a campus they are supposed to call home”. It added: “Any security measure that creates a more hostile campus environment is counterproductive, and UCLA should not even consider engaging in a practice that involves collecting invasive amounts of data on its population of over 45,000 students and 50,000 employees.” Bowing to the pressure, on 18 February UCLA’s administrative vice chancellor, Michael Beck, confirmed the U-turn in a brief letter to the privacy campaign group, Fight for the Future. “UCLA will not pursue the use of facial recognition software technology,” Beck said. “We have determined that the potential benefits are limited and are vastly outweighed by the concerns of the campus community.” The pullout came ahead of a ‘national day of action’ on 2 March, organised by Fight for the Future, aimed at banning facial recognition from colleges across the US. And the campaign group hailed UCLA’s retreat as “a major victory for the movement against facial recognition”. Its deputy director Evan Greer said: “Let this be a warning to other schools: if you think you can get away with experimenting on your students and employees with this invasive technology, you’re wrong. We won’t stop organising until facial recognition is banned on every campus.” Fight for the Future said that over 50 other leading US colleges – including MIT, Harvard, Brown and Columbia – have already stated they have no plans to use facial recognition. In its battle against UCLA, the campaign group used Amazon’s controversial Rekognition facial ID software to compare photos of UCLA student basketball and football players, and faculty members, against a mugshot database. Out of 400 faces scanned, 58 photos were falsely matched. “The vast majority of incorrect matches were of people of colour,” the campaigners said. One of those wrongly matched was Kimberlé Crenshaw, a prominent UCLA law professor, who commented: “Facial recognition has no place on college campuses. I’m glad the administration listened to the community and is abandoning this plan. Other school administrators should follow suit. Racially biased surveillance does not make our communities safer.” UCLA student activist Matthew William Richard, vice chair of the Campus Safety Alliance, added: “We are beyond excited by the potential agenda-setting a top school like UCLA might bring about nationwide through the prohibition of facial recognition software and through listening to the students, workers, faculty and local community. We hope other universities see that they will not get away with these policies.”
law enforcement
London police chief makes plea for face recognition
L
ondon’s police chief, Dame Cressida Dick, has issued an outspoken defence of her force’s use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology. In a speech last month, she branded critics of the technology as “highly inaccurate or highly ill-informed” and said concerns about people’s images passing through LFR were “much, much smaller” than the need to stop citizens “being knifed in the chest”. But the Commissioner also told her audience at a security event on 24 February that she was in favour of proper regulation of LFR and other AI technology. She said: “Trust is so important. It would be very helpful to have some kind of code of conduct for the use of tech in policing. New technology, however it is used in policing, may well require the law to keep up and to change, of course this needs to be debated.” However, the Commissioner’s strongest words were reserved for the critics of LFR, following the Met Police’s introduction of the technology in January, with checks being carried out for short periods in specific locations with advanced warning. This rollout was branded as “alarming biometric mass surveillance” by Silkie Carlo, director of the privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, who said: “Never before have citizens been subjected to identity checks without suspicion, let alone on a mass scale. All the evidence shows this tech makes us less free and no safer.” In her speech, Dame Cressida hit back saying: “I and others have been making the case for the proportionate use of tech in policing. But right now the loudest voices in the debate seem to be the critics. Sometimes highly inaccurate or highly ill informed.” She added: “It is for critics to justify to the victims of crimes why police should not be allowed to use tech lawfully and proportionally to catch criminals.” Dialling up her attack, Dame Cressida said: “It is not for me and the police to decide where the boundary lies between security and privacy. But speaking as a member of public, I will be frank. In an age of Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, concern about my image and that of my fellow law-abiding citizens passing through LFR and not being stored, feels much, much smaller than my and the public’s vital expectation to be kept safe from a knife through the chest.”
March 2020