The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continues to promote biometric solutions for the management of refugee populations with UNHCR head Filippo Grandi’s recent visit to a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi authorities are working to help Rohingya Muslims who have fled nearby Myanmar, where they have faced persecution. Reporting on his meeting with…
Concerns about terrorism continue to drive the military biometrics market, with growing demand from the Asia Pacific region, according to a new report from Transparency Market Research. While concerns about terrorism have been a key market driver for many years, they’re now being exacerbated by mass migration, with several countries “reeling under increased distress over…
“It’s an approach that the UNHCR has been working to put into practice around the world, introducing biometric ID programs for refugees in countries like Thailand, South Sudan, and Chad.” It’s better to manage refugees than to refuse them. That’s the argument made by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Volker…
FindBiometrics president Peter O’Neill recently spoke with Rich Agostinelli, CEO, Crossmatch. The conversation begins with recognition of the company’s 20th anniversary and an overview of Crossmatch’s efforts to reorganize into two distinct business segments. The interview then goes on to deal with Crossmatch’s involvement in two extremely important vertical markets right now—FinTech and refugee ID programs—before concluding…
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has launched a new version of its biometric ID card. The card has been rolled out gradually over the past year or so, having expanded from a pilot project in a Malawi refugee camp to further deployments in Thailand and South Sudan. This approach has allowed the…
June is Border Control & National ID Month at FindBiometrics, in which we are examining the biggest, most ambitious identity tech deployments around the globe as they develop and protect the nations of the world. Last week we looked at the ways that a multimodal approach to border control is best suited to serve the international…
June is Border Control & National ID Month 2016 at FindBiometrics. All month we will be examining the ins-and-outs of biometric citizen registry and identification—its applications, real life deployments, and how it is shaping the global community—as well as the way biometrics are protecting the borders of the nations they are helping to build. To…
The CeBIT IT exhibition is coming up later this week, and DERMALOG plans to take the opportunity to highlight how its technology is being used to help manage Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis. German authorities have been issuing special identity cards to arriving refugees since the end of January, and have gradually been rolling out a…
As Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis continues, the European Commission is asking Italy to improve its collection of newcomers’ fingerprint biometric data. According to a new report, the EC is even telling Italian officials to collect the data by force in situations where migrants’ refuse to submit their fingerprints. Italy has evidently failed to fully comply…
Biometric identity solutions provider Crossmatch is helping German officials to manage the massive influx of refugees to the country. The company has announced that its technology has been deployed by Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF), Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. More specifically, BAMF is using Crossmatch’s Guardian fingerprint scanners to enrol the biometrics…
In a new report issued in collaboration with Accenture, the World Bank is calling on governments to work together to implement standardized, cost-effective identity management solutions. A report synopsis notes that about 1.8 billion adults around the world currently lack any kind of official documentation. That can exclude those individuals from access to essential services,…
The Crisis Forced displacement is a global problem born as the result of persecution and conflict. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s 2014 Global Trends report, by the end of last year there were 59.5 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide, 19.5 million of which are counted as refugees. To illustrate the…
Among the largest biometrics technology deployments in the world you will find government applications of national ID. Massive biometrics databases, containing citizen biometric data, allowing the countries that employ them to dole out essential services, conduct elections, keep track of visitors and more. September is National ID Month at FindBiometrics in which we will be…
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is moving forward with its plans to use biometric technology to identify and track refugees, and has selected a vendor for the project. Accenture, an international technology services provider, has won out in the competitive tendering process and will oversee the implementation of the technology in a…