Winter Soldier Biometrics and the Fight Against COVID: This Week’s Top Stories

The fight against COVID-19 once again features heavily in this week’s roundup of FindBiometrics’ top stories, but a couple of non-pandemic-related stories captured considerable reader interest as well.

One of the latter concerned a particularly intense trial of biometric wearables. In a collaboration with biometric wristband specialist WHOOP, the US Army will be leveraging its partner’s wearable devices to measure the physiological effects of stress on soldiers in the harsh environmental conditions of the Arctic. They’re hoping to leverage the data to better understand how to build soldiers’ resiliency:

US Army’s Biometric Wearables Study to Examine Stress of Arctic Environment on Soldiers

FindBiometrics readers were also understandably interested in some news concerning a cyberattack against SITA, the global air travel IT services specialist. The company issued a statement acknowledging that it had suffered a cyberattack near the end of February, noting that it has already contacted affected customers and partners:

SITA Issues Statement On February Cyberattack

As for the fight against COVID-19, this was the subject of our first in-depth feature kicking off Healthcare Biometrics Month at FindBiometrics. The popular feature looked specifically at the use of wearable devices to detect early signs of infection, the rise of biometrics-backed immunity credentials, and other approaches to mitigating the spread of the virus:

Healthcare Biometrics Month: The Fight Against COVID-19

Readers also showed ongoing interest in the recent news that the Israeli Ministry of Health will be using SuperCom’s PureCare and PureTag devices to track individuals who are subject to lockdown orders after entering the country. The devices are secured by anti-tamper mechanisms and fingerprint biometrics:

SuperCom Provides Location Trackers for Israeli Quarantine Program

And finally, there was also a strong, ongoing interest in last month’s news that Thales’ biometric screening pilot at the Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport in Madrid was being expanded. The project is being carried out in collaboration with Iberia, IECISA, and Gunnebo, and entails the use of facial recognition for passenger processing:

Thales Expands Biometric Screening Program at Madrid Airport

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Stay posted to FindBiometrics next week as we continue to bring you the latest news and interviews from the exciting world of biometrics. To see the hottest stories of the week in mobile digital identity, visit our sibling site Mobile ID World.

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March 5, 2021 – by Alex Perala