Welcome to FindBiometrics’ digest of identity industry news. Here’s what you need to know about the world of digital identity and biometrics today:
Partnerships and Integrations
Secret Double Octopus has teamed up with PwC India to extend its multi-factor authentication services in the Asia-Pacific region, via its Octopus Authentication Platform solution. PwC India will offer OAP to clients as part of its Cyber Security services. The news comes after the announcement of Secret Double Octopus’s partnership with ForgeRock last month.
Multipoint, an Israel-based value-added distributor of cybersecurity solutions, has joined BIO-key’s Channel Alliance Partner program, agreeing to become a distributor of the latter’s IAM solutions. Multipoint will offer BIO-key’s biometric authentication and MFA and SSO solutions to customers across Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
Avtex has partnered with Daon to offer voice recognition-based security to its call center clients. The company is closely partnered with Genesys, a US-based provider of customer experience and call center software, and has integrated Daon’s voice biometrics technology into the Genesys AudioHook API, which will stream call audio from the Genesys Cloud CX platform to Daon’s IdentityX platform to enable real-time biometric authentication. Read our full story.
Namutek, a Costa Rica-based FinTech startup, is now using FacePhi technology for customer onboarding on its Kash app. The app offers free peer-to-peer transactions for users in the Central America region, and is backed by Visa and Mastercard. FacePhi’s technology will be used to verify high-value transactions, with facial recognition leveraged to match end user’s selfie images to pictures of their official identity documents. Read our full story.
Investment Funding
Alcatraz AI has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Almaz Capital, and featured contributions from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Endeavor Catalyst, Golden Seeds, and Silverline Capital, among other contributions from existing investors. Much of the funding will go to talent acquisition, with Alcatraz planning to increase its Sofia-based engineering team by 20 to 30 percent.
Trust Stamp has entered a securities purchase agreement with an undisclosed institutional investor for the sale of about $1.5 million in common stock and warrants. The private placement comes soon after a Q2 update in which Trust Stamp reported a stark increase in revenues for the first half of 2022, as well as a smaller increase in its net loss for the same period, year-over-year.
M&A
Aluf Holdings has terminated a deal to acquire ITBiometrics, Inc., the developer of a cryptocurrency wallet secured by fingerprint authentication technology. In announcing the deal’s termination, Aluf explained that “certain material closing conditions” were not met, despite the efforts of both parties. Aluf CEO Sam Jakobs said his company remains “fully committed to the expansion of our technology platform through the acquisition of suitable businesses, including those within the biometric space.”
BIPA Cases
The Illinois Central Railroad Co. has come to a $3.8 million settlement over a class action lawsuit filed under the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act. The company used a fingerprint-based access control system, and allegedly violated BIPA by failing to obtain written consent for fingerprint scans from visitors. Illinois Central Railroad has not admitted wrongdoing, but has agreed to send cash payments to class members who accessed its facility between April 22, 2014, and June 29, 2022.
A federal judge has dismissed a proposed class-action BIPA lawsuit over an online eyewear retailer’s use of ‘virtual try-on’ technology. U.S. District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber of the Northern District of Illinois determined that BIPA does not cover the facial geometry of consumers who use such online virtual try-on services.
ICE Under Fire
Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have sent an open letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Tae D. Johnson demanding that ICE end its use of facial recognition and other surveillance technologies. The senators’ letter also asked ICE to respond in writing by October 3rd – a little over a month before fiercely contested midterm elections – to a number of questions, including queries about how ICE obtains access to driver’s license data and which data brokers it has partnered with.
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