US Customs and Border Protection has further expanded its use of biometric border control technology on land, announcing that facial recognition systems are now in place at three of the 14 pedestrian lanes at the Paso del Norte checkpoint in El Paso. The facial recognition system will be used to process those entering the US,…
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been discreetly gathering the biometric information of tens of thousands of refugees, many of whom may never make it to America. According to a recent Privacy Impact Assessment, the information is being collected through a sharing arrangement with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which…
Tascent’s InSight Face cooperative facial recognition solution has bested its competitors in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) second annual Biometric Technology Rally. The Rally measured 14 biometric capture products in a test designed to mimic high-traffic environments like airports or other travel hubs. During the test, subjects were asked to move through an eight-foot…
Thanks to Valid, the Government of Guam has officially met the US Department of Homeland Security’s standards for Real ID Compliance. Guam’s Department of Revenue and Taxation consulted with the security giant throughout the certification process, which gives the territory of Guam the ability to issue driver’s licenses and ID cards that will be recognized…
An agreement to facilitate the sharing of biometric data between police authorities in Japan and the US has taken effect, The Japan Times reports. The deal concerns Japan’s National Policy Agency and America’s FBI and Department of Homeland Security. The countries first came to the agreement in 2014. While there were already previous agreements in…
Gemalto is going to work with the US Customs and Border Protection agency on a biometric boarding system at Los Angeles International Airport, the company has announced. LAX has been the site of considerable biometric experimentation over the past year. British Airways and Lufthansa both participated in biometric passenger screening trials with the CBP earlier…
The US Secret Service (USSS) has started testing facial recognition security around the White House, scanning passersby via CCTV feeds. For now, the trial relies upon USSS volunteers, whose faces are added to a watch list, and then automatically identified by the facial recognition system. But the ultimate aim is to scan passersby in the…
Money20/20’s “Digital Identity & Biometrics” track kicked off Sunday on an ambitious note, with Purple Tornado’s Heather Vescent introducing attendees to the concept of Self-Sovereign Identity. Vescent is the co-author, together with Kaliya Young, co-founder of the Internet Identity Workshop and the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium, of the recent report, “Your Guide to Self Sovereign Identity“.…
For the better part of this millennium, the US government’s use of biometrics has been largely framed in the context of anti-terrorism. The serious investments in biometric border initiatives and law enforcement after the September 11 terror attacks led to the realization of such breakthroughs as Biometric Entry/Exit, the FBI’s Next Generation Identification program, and…
“As IDEMIA explains, only five of the 11 companies that participated in the Rally put forward dual, rather than unimodal, systems; and OneLook was one of the top performers, attaining a 93 percent user satisfaction score – one of the top three rankings across all 11 companies.” IDEMIA is celebrating its success in the Department…
The Department of Homeland Security has issued its Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for the second phase of the Traveler Verification Service (TVS), the biometric border screening program being developed by the US Customs and Border Protection Agency and the Transportation Security Administration. The program revolves around the biometric identification of travelers. As it stands in…
A new piece of legislation aimed at facilitating the sharing of biometric intelligence on foreigners posing a potential security threat to the US has passed through the House Homeland Security Committee. Dubbed the “Biometric Identification Migration Alert Program (BITMAP) Authorization Act of 2018”, the bill passed by a vote of 20-7. The BITMAP program entails…
Barcelona-based facial recognition specialist Herta is celebrating its performance in the US Department of Homeland Security’s recent Biometric Technology Rally. The company says it was among the top three performers in the tests, which assessed different solutions based on their ability to match individuals to a large database in an airport screening-type scenario. Herta’s tailored…
The results of the Department of Homeland Security’s first Biometric Technology Rally are out, and Gemalto is celebrating a strong showing. Organized by the DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), the 2018 Biometric Technology Rally was aimed at evaluating facial and iris recognition technologies from a select group of successful applicants., using the S&T’s Biometric…
The Department of Homeland Security is working on a secretive project aimed at dramatically expanding its biometric surveillance powers – and the Electronic Frontier Foundation is arguing it it must be stopped. The project is dubbed HART, for Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology, and it entails the collection of a wide range of data – not…
The US Department of Homeland Security‘s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is organizing “Biometric Technology Rallies” for next year, the agency has announced. The ‘rallies’ will essentially be live trials of biometric technologies. The first, to be held in March at the Maryland Test Facility in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, “will challenge industry to provide biometric…
The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (or “S&T”) is working with the Transportation Security Administration to trial contactless fingerprint scanning stations for traveler processing at airports. The tests began in June, and are taking place at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and Denver International Airport. They’re restricted to volunteers who have signed up…
The head of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) is urging the Department of Homeland Security to consider the use of enhanced biometric scanning and other sophisticated technology to secure flights, rather than implement its proposed ban on laptops and similar electronic devices for flights coming to the US. In a press release, CTA CEO Gary…
The Department of Homeland Security is considering an expansion of a personal electronics ban beyond the eight Middle Eastern countries currently affected, and the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) is pushing back with an argument that biometric screening should be effective enough when it comes to more sophisticated security for flights out of Europe. Speaking…