More TikTok Trouble: Identity News Digest

Welcome to FindBiometrics’ digest of identity industry news. Here’s what you need to know about the world of digital identity and biometrics today:

IDEMIA Wins USCIS Livescan Contract

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has awarded an IDIQ contract to IDEMIA for the provision of Livescan fingerprint scanning technologies used to submit images to the FBI and the Office of Biometric Identity Management. The contract will see IDEMIA’s technology replace the existing Livescan technology used across USCIS Application Support Centers, Field Operations, and Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations (RAIO) Directorates; and it could extend through 2027.

WEF Publishes Revised Police Biometrics Guidelines

The World Economic Forum has published a revised version of its policy framework on the responsible use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement. The framework revolves around nine key principles, including respect for human and fundamental rights; necessary and proportional use; human oversight and accountability; optimization of system performance; and mitigation of error and bias, among others. A first draft was released in October of 2021, after which six law enforcement agencies piloted the implementation of its principles; the new document has been modified based on their feedback.

Delhi Court Rules On Password Self-incrimination

A Delhi court judge has ruled that India’s Central Bureau of Investigation cannot compel a criminal suspect to provide the password credentials of a personal device, reasoning that it would be a violation of constitutional protections against self-incrimination. But in making his ruling, judge Naresh Kumar Laka noted that the same does not apply to biometrics, which would fall under the category of “physical material or evidence”.

1Password Takes Passkey Shortcut With Passage Acquisition

1Password has acquired Passage, the developer of an API that enables third party developers to leverage the biometric capabilities of their devices – such as the iPhone’s Face ID or Microsoft’s Windows Hello – for biometric login. In announcing the acquisition, 1Password CEO Jeff Shiner explained that Passage offers “a turnkey solution” for companies that want to embrace the biometric login concept of Apple’s new passkeys SSO solution, without having to develop their own particular implementation of passkeys. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Darwinium Raises $10M In Seed Funding

Silicon Valley startup Darwinium has raised $10 million in a seed funding round led by Blackbird and Airtree, two Australia-based VC firms, with additional funding from angel investors including Naval Ravikant and Jeff Fagnan. Darwinium offers a “Customer Protection Platform” that uses a number of metrics to build a unique digital signature for end users, and says its behavioral biometrics technology is sophisticated enough to be used for authentication, rather than merely fraud detection.

VSBLTY Appoints Senior Engineers

VSBLTY has appointed Peter Kalocsai as its new Principal Computer Vision Scientist and Nareshkumar Jayavelu as its Principal Data Scientist. In a statement, the company noted that Kalocsai holds Intel Edge AI Certification, and that he founded KaloVision, a company that has developed fingerprint, iris, and facial recognition technologies. Jayavelu, meanwhile, has Hortonworks Hadoop certification and is a Lead Data Science expect with Google Tensorflow; he will focus on VSBLTY’s data analytics and serve as “a bridge between VSBLTY data ops, sales & marketing, and engineering,” the company said.

IDEX Partners With UK Issuer and Processor

IDEX Biometrics has established a partnership with an unnamed “issuer and processor of EMV compliant payment cards” based in the United Kingdom, the company has announced. The company added that its new partner is a well-established B2B solutions provider with a focus on banking and FinTech, and a portfolio spanning the UK, Europe, and North America. IDEX expects the partnership to deliver fingerprint-scanning cards to consumer in the first quarter of next year.

OneSpan Announces Biometric Login Device

OneSpan has unveiled a new biometric authentication device. Dubbed ‘DIGIPASS CX’, it’s essentially a biometric security key, with an embedded fingerprint sensor for authentication. It can wirelessly pair with a laptop, desktop computer, or smartphone, and can be configured to operate based on multiple authentication protocols including FIDO2, OATH, and OneSpan’s own DIGIPASS protocol. OneSpan plans a commercial launch for Q2 of 2023.

Société Générale Launches Biometric Corporate Cards in Morocco

Société Générale has launched biometric payment cards for Moroccan customers who hold business accounts. In a statement, the French financial services firm explained that the Société Générale Morocco Business Platinum Card is a response to “growing interest in securing financial transactions”. The bank first started experimenting with biometric card technology in 2018, in collaboration with IDEMIA.

Web3 Self Network Goes Live

Blockchain startup Self has launched its flagship platform – the Self Network – and mobile app. The identity platform is designed to guarantee secure identity in the world of web3 through the use of biometric authentication, which can tie personal information and data from documents such as a passport to a digital ID on the Self Network. Self plans to launch a crypto token on the Ethereum network in the first quarter of next year.

FCC Commissioner Stirs More TikTok Trouble

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr has called on the US government to ban TikTok over concerns about how the China-based social media platform handles Americans’ user data, which may include the collection of biometric data. His call comes as the Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. negotiates with TikTok over its potential to continue operations in the US if parent company ByteDance sells it to an American firm. The FCC had asked Apple and Google to delist the app this past summer, framing the app as a national security risk.

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November 3, 2022 – by Alex Perala