A lot has happen in the biometric field in the past two weeks, from facial recognition vendors helping countries fight the spread of the virus to affecting fingerprint scanner market. Also some great guides to facial recognition and interesting look into printing artificial fingerprints. Enjoy!
Facial biometric is fighting Covid-19
Poland and other countries are using facial biometrics to fight Covid-19 spread. Use cases range from registration for help to quarantine checks.
Also, biometric IDs can help to fight epidemics and pandemics more effectively by identifying sick and cured more precisely. “More than 1 billion people worldwide have no way of proving their identity, according to the World Bank.”
This is the time to get rid of passwords
World Economic Forum is arguing, that we should get rid of passwords to reduce fraud. Nowadays a lot of business transactions are done remotely and passwords are insufficient to really provide secure transactions: “Getting rid of passwords can improve security, lower costs and increase usability.”
How to do biometric voter registration right
My colleague Matúš Kapusta has put together some recommendations for biometric voter registration process. As he has a lot of experience from the field, you should listen.
Masks do not disrupt facial recognition
Several vendors are demonstrating (including Innovatrics), that their algorithms can handle facial recognition and matching even with facial masks on. The accuracy suffers, but it is still great.
Cloning fingerprints
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| Source: https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2020/04/fingerprint-research.html |
This in depth study shows that fingerprint cloning is possible, but not worth it for standard individuals. So if you are not someone who can be targeted by secret services or other well funded actor, you should be save. If you do not want to read the article, watch the video.
The Death of Fingerprint Readers
In a related story, Maxine Most from Acuity is predicting the end of fingerprint scanners, especially due to current Covid-19 pandemic and possible health implications of touching publicly shared fingerprint devices.
Guides to Facial Recognition
There are two great new guides to facial recognition, one shorter and one longer. Additionally, here is a new report about public feelings towards facial recognition.
Display orientation based on face recognition
I do not allow my phone to rotate the screen as it usually works poorly, especially if I am lying down. This new patent could solve this.