Fans of the Cardiff City football club in Wales protested the use of facial recognition technology ahead of a recent game against Swansea City. The South Wales police had deployed two surveillance vans in the area around Cardiff City’s stadium, arguing that the vans would help catch perpetrators wanted for football-related crimes. The Cardiff City…
The Chinese startup iFlytek is hoping to introduce its voice recognition platform at a national scale within the next two to three years. The company leverages AI and big data to identify users based on unique vocal traits, and is now claiming to have made a research breakthrough that will enable a more widespread deployment…
The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) in the Philippines is moving forward with the full implementation of a biometric attendance and time tracking system. The NCRPO Biometric System utilizes fingerprint recognition to monitor the comings and goings of various law enforcement personnel. 1,266 law enforcement employees have already been enrolled in the new system. An…
Democratic junior senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware) is cosponsoring a bipartisan piece of legislation that aims to regulate the use of facial recognition technology on the federal level. The other sponsor for the bill — known as The Facial Recognition Technology Warrant Act — is Utah Republican senator Mike Lee (R-UT). It would require federal law…
The town of Brookline, Massachusetts, has officially moved forward with its facial recognition ban. The proposed ban was first tabled back in August with the blessing of Brookline State Senator Cynthia Creem. The new law bars the government’s use of facial recognition technology for surveillance and other purposes. It passed with an overwhelming 179 votes…
Just a few years ago, the kind of biometric technology most familiar to everyday consumers was probably fingerprint recognition, thanks to the explosion of fingerprint sensors across a wide range of smartphones. But today, there’s a different modality in the spotlight: facial recognition. And sometimes that light isn’t very flattering. Much of the credit for…
IDEMIA will be showcasing a variety of biometric security solutions at this week’s Milipol Paris event, which runs from November 19 to 22. The technology on display is primarily designed for law enforcement and government organizations. IDEMIA’s offerings have been slotted into three separate categories based on the intended purpose of each solution. Some of…
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…
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…
Hong Kong police have access to facial recognition technology, but it isn’t clear if they have deployed it in their response to ongoing public protests, reports the South China Morning Post. Citing anonymous individuals who are familiar with the matter, the report says that Hong Kong’s police force has been contracting facial recognition technology from…
The United States ranks just as poorly as the worst European Union members when it comes to privacy laws and government surveillance, according to a new analysis from Comparitech. Conducted by privacy advocate and tech journalist Paul Bischoff, the analysis scores various countries out of five, with 4.1-5 indicating that a country ‘upholds privacy standards…
Detroit lawmakers are expressing concern about law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology. City council member Roy McCalister, Jr. will be discussing the technology at an upcoming community forum, while US Representative Brenda Lawrence is planning to introduce legislation that would regulate the technology at the federal level. The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners formally…
With September coming to a close, it’s time to take a look back at some of FindBiometrics’ featured coverage of Government Biometrics Month. The government sector is one of the most important components of the broader biometrics industry – indeed, it’s a driving force – so it’s always well worth taking a look at some…
Law enforcement’s unmonitored use of facial recognition technology has come under increasing scrutiny in the past few months. Bernie Sanders has echoed San Francisco and called for a complete ban on the police use of the technology, while Microsoft recently stated that it will refuse to sell its facial recognition tech for mass surveillance. With…
India is moving forward with plans to set up a massive facial recognition surveillance scheme. The proposed system would centralize biometric data from multiple national databases, and would gather new data through a network of facial recognition cameras that would be set up throughout the country. Officials are hoping that the new system will help…
The Australian state of Victoria has uploaded all of its driver’s license photos to the National Driver Licence Facial Recognition Solution (NDLFRS), a comprehensive facial recognition database maintained by the federal government’s Department of Home Affairs. For the moment, the images in the database will only be available to VicRoads and Victoria Police. The Victorian…
Zion Market Research has released a new report that predicts that the global biometric technology market will hit $59.43 billion by 2025, climbing from $17.16 billion in 2018. The final figure represents a CAGR of 19.42 percent. The forecast is nearly identical to that of Grand View Research, which projected a $59.31 billion global biometrics…
The government market has always been one of the key drivers of the overall biometrics industry. That’s partly because for a long time, the government sector pretty much was the biometrics industry; other areas, like consumer-facing biometrics and FinTech, are much more recent phenomena. But the government sector has also played an outsized role because…
Macau police have announced plans for a facial and object recognition trial that leverages the city’s extensive network of CCTV surveillance cameras. Fifty cameras will be selected for the facial recognition test, while another 50 will be selected for license plate recognition. The cameras are being installed as part of Macau’s ongoing, four-phase rollout of…