Biometrics News – Facial Recognition An Israeli artificial intelligence startup with investments from a number of American companies including Microsoft has been linked to the biometric surveillance of Palestinians. AnyVision is an international tech company based in Israel that raised $78 million in June from an investment group including American tech giant Microsoft. One of…
Dynabook Americas Inc. and Microsoft have partnered to release a lineup of Windows 10 Secured-core laptops that feature the latest in multimodal biometric security. The Portégé X30, Tecra X40 and Tecra X50 feature next-level hardware and software identity protection, and are among the first devices that meet the Windows Secured-core PCs requirements. “We are pleased to see the…
Microsoft and Nuance have announced a strategic partnership to transform healthcare by accelerating the delivery of ambient clinical intelligence (ACI) technologies. A recent study shows that physicians are spending two hours on paperwork for every hour spent interacting with patients, leading to increased cases of physicians feeling burnt out. “Physician burnout has become one of the most…
Microsoft is doubling down on its commitment to the ethical use of facial recognition. The company previously refused to sell facial recognition technology to a California law enforcement agency, and has now extended that moratorium to any government organization that would misuse the technology, specifically for surveillance. “We won’t sell facial recognition services for the…
It has been another busy week in the varied world of biometrics, with the week’s top stories covering a range of modalities and applications. That having been said, two of FindBiometrics’ most popular articles speak to the persistent popularity of one salient trend in particular – the emergence of the biometric payment cards market: IDEX…
“Feitian made its announcement at the recent Identiverse 2019 event in Washington, DC, where the company also showcased its major new security product, the AllinPass K33.” China-based Feitian has joined the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association, or MISA, the company has announced. MISA is Microsoft’s effort to team up with strategic security partners to help defend…
Microsoft’s MS Celeb dataset of face images has been quietly taken down by the company. The open source dataset has been used to train and test facial recognition systems, with major names like IBM, Panasonic, Alibaba, and Hitachi having used it for their own purposes. Ostensibly a collection of Public Domain celebrity photos, MS Celeb…
In recent months, many companies have made headlines for selling biometric technology to police forces around the world. Microsoft, on the other hand, has done the opposite. Speaking at a conference at Stanford, company President Brad Smith revealed that Microsoft refused to sell its facial recognition tech to an unnamed law enforcement agency in California.…
This week’s most-read articles on FindBiometrics cover a range of topics, including liveness detection, security in the Internet of Things, and even a bit of biometrics controversy. First, though, some good news. Despite incursions from facial recognition in the wake of Apple’s launch of Face ID, the overall fingerprint biometrics market is going to continue…
“…Microsoft has stated that it is not involved in a partnership with SenseNets, and that it has asked the company to remove the Microsoft logo from its website as it had been used without permission.” Microsoft is denying that its technology is being used in an intrusive and controversial Chinese surveillance program after being implicated…
Facial recognition proved to be the hot topic with respect to this week’s most-read articles on FindBiometrics, though a couple of other important trends also shared the spotlight. One of the latter was the ongoing integration of biometric technologies into consumer laptops and PCs, in this case from Microsoft: Microsoft Patents a Windows Key Fingerprint…
Over the past year, some smartphone manufacturers have started phasing out dedicated fingerprint readers in favor of in-display fingerprint sensors. Now a recently published patent suggests that Microsoft is looking into alternative sensor placements with its laptops. According to the patent, Microsoft would embed a fingerprint sensor in the Windows key, thereby inserting its fingerprint…
“Our customers seek simplified, cost-effective central authentication services that accommodate both roving and single-device users without having to issue and manage tokens or pay personal data plan costs for users to use a personal device for work. The fact that SAML is ubiquitous makes getting more value from a BIO-key investment much more simple.” –…
Amazon is now calling for government regulation of facial recognition technology, even as it defends sales of its own such technology to law enforcement authorities. In a new post on the Amazon Web Services Machine Learning blog, the company’s VP of Global Public Policy, Michael Punke, writes, “We support the calls for an appropriate national…
Microsoft’s top leadership continue to call for regulation of the facial recognition industry, this time with CEO Satya Nadella making the case in a talk at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “In the marketplace there’s no discrimination between the right use and the wrong use,” he said, regarding practices concerning the development and sale…
“By targeting three of the world’s biggest tech companies, the letters could help to focus attention on the issue.” A coalition of 85 advocacy and activist groups have signed open letters urging Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to pledge not to sell facial recognition technology to government authorities. Signatories include the American Civil Liberties Union, the…
“GoTrust ID is designed to authenticate a user based on device identification with respect to Android and iOS smartphones, together with facial, fingerprint, and or iris recognition, depending on a given device’s capabilities. “ Acer is bringing passwordless authentication to more consumers, care of GoTrust. The companies have announced that the latter’s GoTrust ID authentication…
An AI research group based in New York University has issued a new paper calling for government regulation of artificial intelligence technologies. Called AI Now, the group is headed by employees from major tech companies including Google and Microsoft. Its latest publication, simply titled “AI Now Report 2018”, highlights the growing use of AI technologies…
A new Windows 10 update has delivered FIDO2 authentication, with Microsoft placing its Windows Hello biometric authentication platform closer to front and center for end users. With respect to the latter, Windows’ development team has now placed a Windows Hello setup button right on the OS’s lock screen. It’s clearly a move aimed at encouraging…