2020’s Biggest Trends: This Week’s Top Biometrics Stories

It’s been another busy week in the biometrics industry, with no one particular modality or use case dominating the headlines anymore than usual. Accordingly, this week’s roundup of FindBiometrics’ top stories is a varied one, presenting an assortment of some of the most prominent trends in biometrics of the year.

Facial recognition – and controversy over some of the ways that it’s used – is the key element of the week’s most popular articles, which reported on pushback against the use of facial recognition in public toilets in the city of Dongguan. The technology was used to ration toilet paper – until a public backlash prompted authorities to suspend its use:

Chinese City Suspends Biometric Toilet Paper Program

Then there was some timely news about a COVID-19 immunity credential solution. A televised NBC News report covered the LA Football Club’s plans to implement CLEAR’s Health Pass as a key component of its reopening plans, and featured a brief interview with CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker, who explained that the app puts users in complete control of their health data:

CLEAR Health Pass Gets Attention with Soccer Stadium Deployment

Readers also demonstrated their ongoing interest in the increasingly important matter of liveness detection and anti-spoofing technology with their attention to an interview with FaceTec CEO Kevin Alan Tussy, who spoke with FindBiometrics CEO Peter O’Neill about his company’s $100,000 bug bounty program on a new episode of the ID Talk Podcast:

ID Talk Podcast: FaceTec CEO Kevin Alan Tussy on the State of Face Authentication and the $100K Spoof Bounty

Then there’s the buzzy concept of naked payments, an emerging application area in which biometric technology is used to let consumers make in-store purchases without the need for a payment card, cash, smartphone, or any other piece of hardware in their possession. It looks like such technology could play a part in a new retail-focused partnership between Fujitsu and Zippin:

Fujitsu-Zippin Partnership Points to Contactless Biometric Checkout

And finally, readers also showed a lot of interest in some patent news concerning FMCW and LiDAR technology. StereoVision Imaging’s new patents cover technologies that offer a number of applications including identity verification, surveillance, and biometric monitoring:

SVI Adds Continuation Patents to Biometrics and Object Recognition Portfolio

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Stay posted to FindBiometrics next week as we continue to bring you the latest news and interviews from the exciting world of biometrics. To see the hottest stories of the week in mobile digital identity, visit our sibling site Mobile ID World.

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December 12, 2020 – by Alex Perala