November 9, 2013 – by Peter B. Counter
This week a report was published by Research and Markets estimating the value of the global biometrics market to reach $16.7 billion by the year 2019. This is a significant amount of growth, the market more than tripling in size over the span of six years. According to the report this boom will be stoked primarily by the demand for post-password security and access control solutions, especially in emerging economies like India, Russia and China. These three economies specifically have been singled out by other research firms, like Frost & Sullivan, as the future hubs of biometric development.
Staying in the global perspective, Suprema hosted its Global Partnership Program this week, showcasing its technology offerings and encouraging collaboration between its international partners. Suprema pointed to the sort of collaboration encouraged by this event as the key to the fingerprint solution provider’s success.
Continued success was behind the decision Precise Biometrics made to hire a new CEO. Thomas Marschall is leaving the company whose fingerprint algorithm was licensed to Fingerprint Cards earlier this year, ending up on a smartphone in Korea. Håkan Persson, who brings with him a strong sales background, was hired as CEO while the Precise Biometrics board of directors searches for a permanent replacement for Marschall.
Oberthur Technologies, smart card provider and new member of the FIDO Alliance, launched a new PIV card for embedded Secure Element (eSE). The new ID-One PIV for eSE combines an Android application and a JavaCard applet to provide increased security for government agencies and large corporations looking for physical and logical access control as well as easy email encryption. It has been shortlisted for the SESAMES awards, which are to be announced at this year’s Cartes Secure Connexions Event in Paris.
If you are headed to Paris to attend the Cartes event, chances are you will be flying, and with that choice of travel comes the dreaded airport security line. Passengers flying out of the new departures and arrivals terminal at Lisbon International Airport will be able to breath a sigh of relief, however, knowing that this week 24 new biometric eGates were deployed in order to streamline the process. As part of the Portuguese government’s ABC eGates initiative that was started in 2007, 24 Vision Box vb i-match 5 units have been installed in the new terminal.
Finally, as a reminder that biometrics goes well beyond the realm of access control, trend expert Daniel Levine mentioned wearable biometric technologies in a recent analysis of the healthy lifestyle markets. Shirts that indicate changes in mood meant to be worn during yoga and shoes that reconfigure runners’ playlists based on their pace and heart rate are novel examples of the wide range of applications biometrics really has. It is no wonder, between the common uses associated with security, to these interesting applications in human performance enhancement, that the global market has been projected as growing so quickly in the coming years. Biometrics is really on the verge of integrating with almost everything we interact with on a regular basis and is on track to become an extension of our daily lives.
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