BIO-key has opened a new African subsidiary in Nigeria. BIO-key Africa will operate under the leadership of Managing Director Maduawuchi “Steve” Uwazie, and will handle local sales and government relations while building new biometric products specifically for the African market. “Though we have conducted business in Africa for years, BIO-key Africa serves as a local…
As another big year in the biometrics industry reaches its conclusion, it’s time once again to reflect on the state of the art through FindBiometrics’ Year in Review survey. Now in its 17th year, the Year in Review survey is the biggest of its kind in the biometrics industry. Thanks to FindBiometrics’ unique readership of…
The Israeli startup Viisights has received $10 million in a round of Series-A funding led by Canada’s Awz Ventures. Viisights is a behavioral recognition specialist and the developer of the Viisights Wise solution, which uses AI to analyze video surveillance footage in real time. Unlike traditional object recognition platforms that can only identify discreet objects,…
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the subject of a lawsuit for violating the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA). This is the latest in a string of BIPA violation suits filed against major corporations in the state of Illinois, where the act aims to protect individuals from having their biometric data recorded, stored, or used without…
A pair of senators from both sides of the political aisle have tabled a new bill that would place restrictions on the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement agencies. The Facial Recognition Technology Warrant Act — sponsored by Christopher Coons (D-Del.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant and…
The biometrics industry spans across a number of technologies, sectors, and verticals, and this week’s roundup of FindBiometrics’ top articles once again runs the gamut. If there is one dominant theme in this week’s roster, it may be mobile biometrics, which feature heavily in two of FindBiometrics’ most-read articles. One was our latest in-depth feature…
VSBLTY and Energetika have moved on to the deployment phase of their smart city partnership in Mexico City. The two companies first joined forces back in June, working together to develop a surveillance solution that pairs Energetika’s smart lighting tech with VSBLTY’s crowd analytics and facial recognition platform. The resulting security kits contain wireless alarms,…
The United States Navy has begun using biometric signatures for their recruitment process in an effort to increase speed and efficiency, and reduce the amount of paper used when enlisting Sailors. Prior to October 1st, Navy recruitment officers were required to obtain a ‘wet’ signature – using pen and ink on paper – on numerous…
Fingerprint scanning is now a familiar and even mainstream concept among consumers today, thanks largely to the mobile biometrics revolution, which has seen the fingerprint sensor emerge as a standard feature on smartphones over the past several years. That trend is generally thought to have been catalyzed by Apple, which made fingerprint authentication a flagship…
Elektra Labs, a healthcare security company, recently announced a $2.9 million seed funding round led by Maverick Ventures, along with the launch of Atlas, a platform for cataloging connected monitoring technologies. Atlas aims to simplify the evaluation of biometric tracking tools — fitness trackers and other medical tech wearables, for example — for clinical use…
Aerendir is teaming up with SiFive in an effort to make AI more affordable for device manufacturers. The partnership anticipates that there will be a rising demand for IoT technology following the launch of commercial 5G networks. To that end, Aerendir will leverage SiFive’s RISC-V Core to provide manufacturers with cost-effective on-device AI. The technology…
The Government of Madeira is moving forward with the pilot of the “Smart Island” digital identity program in collaboration with Tactilis. Madeira is an autonomous group of Portuguese islands off the coast of North Africa with a population of approximately 300,000 people. A consortium of Madeira’s leading systems integrators has placed an initial order for…
Incode, a provider of secure biometric products for banking, payment and retail industries, recently announced that it has secured $10 million in funding to accelerate the growth and adoption of Incode Omni, its new biometric identity platform Incode Omni is being touted as a pioneering omnichannel biometric identity platform, and some of the tools that…
The Savelovsky court of Moscow has ruled against the notion that the use of facial recognition cameras is in violation of the Russian Constitution with regards to the collection of personal data and an individual’s rights to privacy. In a case brought forward by plaintiff Alena Popova the courts declared that her arrest in 2018…
Crowdsource app tester Applause is looking to target bias in the world of artificial intelligence (AI) with a new AI training and testing service focused on diversity and size. Applause — formerly uTest — has spent years providing testing platforms for apps and services, and now it aims to eliminate any bias in AI by…
A lawsuit has been filed in Illinois against WeWork, global real-estate company and provider of shared office space, alleging the use of facial recognition scans without consent. The plaintiff in the case, Elliot Osborne, alleges that “When individuals arrive at a WeWork office space, each Defendant requires them to have their facial geometry scanned to…
Of all the biometric modalities, facial recognition has become one of the most widely used and discussed in recent years. That’s why November is Face Biometrics Month at FindBiometrics, in which we’ll be delivering in-depth articles and other special features dedicated to this technology. It’s a broad category though, with facial recognition deployed across a…
China has begun testing surveillance technology in its northwestern Xinjiang region that aims to predict an individuals’ behavior by reading their emotional state. The technology uses cameras to scan people’s faces and ‘read’ their facial expressions in order to “identify criminal suspects by analyzing their mental state… to prevent illegal acts including terrorism and smuggling,”…
INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock advocated for biometric security measures at a recent Project Kalkan meeting in Tajikistan. Founded in 2004, Project Kalkan is a 15-country initiative that seeks to reduce the threat of terrorism in central Asia. The members of Project Kalkan share information about terrorist individuals and organizations, and coordinate their anti-terrorism operations…
A lawsuit that was filed by an employee against soft drink maker Keurig Dr. Pepper Inc. in Illinois that claims the company violated the state’s biometric privacy laws has been moved to a federal court at the request of the defendant. The plaintiff for the case — Gio Villanueva, an employee of Dr. Pepper in…
