Biometrics investors seek balance between scale and sustainability

Budgets for biometrics and digital government ID programs were the main topic of the most read news stories on Biometric update this week. Funds needed by the US TSA to roll out its airport biometrics are being diverted, an intelligence agency is considering investing in a research partnership, and Socure is even more closely involved in the GSA’s pilot of biometrics for Login.gov than previously reported. The EU is investing in digital transformation, including digital wallets, an area where Google has big plans. Ethiopia is enlisting help to set itself up for sound financial management, and IDScan.net has a revenue estimate for the mDL program that Wyoming is moving toward. Elsewhere in the market, Pindrop has a $100 million line of business to scale its customer base for voice biometrics and deepfake detection.

Top biometrics news of the week

Lawmakers and former officials blame the TSA’s consistent diversion of funds collected from the Passenger Security Fee to extend the upgrade to biometric security checkpoints at U.S. airports. At current spending levels, it could take until 2049 to upgrade to CAT-2s (provided by Idemia) nationwide.

A pilot introducing selfie biometrics to Login.gov as part of an upgrade to IAL2 has resulted in its integration by the US Social Security Administration, with 5 million people already creating accounts. Socure has been unveiled as a partner of one of the pilot participants, Celerity, providing its facial biometrics and identity verification capabilities.

A U.S. intelligence agency is exploring collaborations with academic partners to investigate the use of biometrics, digital identity and other data in counterterrorism and counterintelligence activities. USSOCOM could potentially spend hundreds of millions of dollars over five years to collect as much as possible from battlefield evidence, or “Collected Exploitable Material.”

A number of Labour Lords have joined the chorus of calls for the new government to consider bringing a national digital ID system to the UK. It probably won’t involve cards, there may not be a national database and a proposal may not come until the autumn or later, but Lord Blunkett says something is inevitable.

A significant portion of the €108 million the EU has budgeted for its Digital Europe programme is expected to go to digital identity-related projects. These include cross-border interoperability for EU Digital Identity Wallets and eIDAS implementation. On the latter front, all but four Member States have pre-notified one or more national eID means.

No money will be allocated to public outreach on digital ID in Germany, heise online reports (in German). Adoption is only 22 percent so far, but the government is prioritizing a public communication campaign on the risks of using marijuana, which has been partially legalized.

The AI ​​Act is expected to enter into force on 1 August 2024, and will fully apply to AI developers in the EU from 2 August 2026. The law’s rollout schedule also includes a ban deadline for “unacceptable risk”, including the collection of biometric identifiers in public without consent or emergency authorisation, of 2 February next year.

Allegations are circulating that officials with Malta’s Identity Authority facilitated the issuance of as many as 18,000 fraudulent digital ID cards. Identita denies the fake IDs were issued and has promised legal action against a former lawmaker, but with whistleblower status reportedly denied to witnesses, the truth may prove elusive.

Wyoming’s work on introducing mobile driver’s licenses appears to be quietly moving forward. A state Department of Transportation official has indicated that once they launch (as early as next year), they will support ZKP and limited disclosure. IDScan.net estimates that Wyoming could generate $640,000 a year in revenue from mDLs.

Ethiopia is hiring a consultant for a one-year contract to help set up the financial operations for the national digital ID system, Fayda. The role will include supporting NIDP’s budgeting and planning, audits, controls and analysis to make an inclusive system sustainable.

A few digital rights advocates share their thoughts Biometric update that the Nigerian government needs to do more to protect people’s digital identity data. Khadijah El-Usman of the Paradigm Initiative and Digital Rights Lawyer Solomon Okedara suggest that NIMC needs to take more responsibility for recent problems, but there are already data protection policies that can help, if properly enforced.

A software teardown shows how Google Wallet is tackling universal support for all types of ID documents and other credentials. The next version update is expected to introduce automatic recognition, scanning and storage for a wide range of documents, along with a manual entry option for documents it can’t identify.

Pindrop has raised $100 million in debt financing, and CEO Vijay Balasubramanian tells Biometric update that the timing is right to scale on credit. Voice deepfake attacks are on the rise, and customers already using Pindrop’s voice biometrics and liveness are signing up en masse for an extra layer of protection against them.

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Article Topics

biometrics | digital ID | digital identity | identity management | weekly overview