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NEWS/COMMENT

Biometric Technology Today May 2012

....Continued from page 3 scanner and enter their birthday plus a pin number. The ATMs will initially be installed at 10 banks from September.

One reason the bank decided to use the new technology was to address issues created by the tsunami of 2011 where many people who escaped the tsunami lost all forms of identi-fication and were unable to access their bank accounts for some time.

Finger and palm scanners are used by many large Japanese banks along with cash cards but Ogaki bank has said it will be the first bank in the country to do away with cards altogether.

Separately, European Union Actibio project is looking at taking ATM biometrics a step further, using dynamic feature technology alongside face recognition to enhance security in banks and ATMs. Faces could be scanned at the ATM or the counter and the way some-one approached the machine or teller window – their gait– could also provide an additional identification factor.

Airport and seaport police association pilots biometric access control

The International Association of Airport and Seaport Police is pilot-

ing a new identification and authen-tication standard for entry control that shuns keys and proximity cards in favour of biometric technology that recognises an enrolled individual as the entry key, according to Security Director News.

The standard is called 1PASS (1 Personal Authentication Security Standard) and uses a combination of HD video, facial recognition, speech analytics and behavioural analytics to identify and grant access to individuals enrolled in the local system.

Agnitio launches voice authentication for Android

Agnitio has launched Kivox mobile, software that is able to perform a

voice authentication on Android smart-phones or tablets without being con-nected to a network.

“Kivox mobile will bring voice authentica-tion closer to the user,” says Emilio Martinez, CEO of Agnitio. “You will teach your device to recognise your voice, whenever you want and at the pace you want. The device will improve its recognition capabilities over time, and you will be able to test how it works in multiple situations.”

Facial recognition platforms battle for mobile market

HTC has been granted a patent on Face Unlock, according to filings

at the US patents database http://1.usa.gov/Ht08M9.

Observers suggest that this means that in future Face Unlock may become exclusive to HTC mobile devices.

In the same month, the FaceVault app came on to the market. Similar to the Face Unlock

system found in Android 4.0 it provides a facial recognition security lock for Apple iOS.

India to merge ID databases

The Indian government is to go ahead with the merger of its

Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number (PAN) databases

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) issues the Aadhaar number that will be synchronised with the Permanent Account Number database maintained by the Indian Income Tax department following tension between the two departments.

The Indian government is also to introduce biometric cards on a pilot basis in Pudukottai district to provide families with access to food rations, according to The Hindu.

The system is intended to address the issue of multiple registration of family cards.

The Director of Census Operations under the National Population Registry was prepar-ing biometric data with 10 fingerprints and irises of citizens to issue unique identification numbers. The data would be used for issuing biometric smart family cards.

Biometric technology is well established in some areas. Systems are commonly seen at borders, there is increas-ing use of the technology for authentication in devel-

oping countries, and law enforcement agencies are showing growing interest in biometrics – the use of voice biometrics in the recent case of Trayvon Martin’s 911 call in the US was a high profile instance.

Yet biometric technology cannot be said to be truly mass market. The average person is not yet using biometric technology in their day-to-day lives. Business use of biometrics is far from pervasive.

In this issue of Biometric Technology Today we take a look at the mass-market potential of biometric technology across a number of sec-tors and the current drivers for mass-market adoption (see article page 9).

The US military is driving much of the R&D into biometrics that look likely to make their way into the mainstream in time. And conversely the US military is also looking seri-ously at the commercial technology already

on the market to assist its operations. An in-depth review of the US military’s biometrics activities provides a useful insight into the state of the market and the future of the tech-nology (see article page 5).

The reliability and usability of the technol-ogy will be key to mass-market adoption of course. For many applications that can be achieved by taking a multi-modal approach, using two or more forms of biometric or other tokens to identify or authenticate the person.

The fusion of biometric technology that measures human physiology or behaviour for identification and authentication purposes with biometric readings of a person’s biology for health or social reasons, is also an emerg-ing area.

Researchers are bringing identification and drug testing fusion products to the auto market, for example, allowing systems within a vehicle to both identify the would-be driver and establish whether he or she is fit to drive. Academic research is increasingly supported by interest and hard cash from the commer-cial sector, a sure sign of a maturing market.

Tracey Caldwell

COMMENT

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Emilio Martinez: bringing voice authentication closer to the user. india