Friday, May 31, 2013

At least 99.27% of Ghanaian voters verified by fingerprint

Almost 80,000 voted by face-only verification – Afari - Gyan (Ghana Web)
The Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan on Thursday May 30, 2013, told the Supreme Court in the election petition trial that there were close to 80, 000 voters who were designated as ‘Face-Only’ (FO) voters because the biometric registration machines failed to capture their finger prints during the registration exercise.
...
Explaining himself further in Court on Thursday, at the start of his evidence-in-chief for the second respondent, Dr. Afari Gyan said among those classified as FO voters were eligible voters who had suffered “permanent trauma” and “temporary trauma”.

He explained permanent trauma to mean voters who had no fingers at all for which reason their fingerprints could not have been captured by the biometric verification machine.

Temporary trauma sufferers, according to Dr. Afari-Gyan, were those who had fingers alright, but nonetheless did not have fingerprints to have been captured by the machine.

He said those two categories of voters were captured in the register as people who could only be identified by their faces before voting since their fingerprints could not be captured by the biometric verification equipment.
Any identification system has to plan for exceptions. This is true whether the ID measure in place is a metal key, an ID card, a PIN, a fingerprint or any combination of ID technologies.

More on exceptions.

A Ghana Web article on exception planning published in early 2012 is here, so the subject of unverifiable biometrics isn't a surprise.

Instead, let's deal with the numbers.

According to the article quoted above 80,000 (and that seems to be an upper bound rather than a firm total) voters were given blank ballots without fingerprint ID verification. Some portion of that number would have been definitively established during the voter registration process as people missing hands and fingers as they completed the voter registration process.

The image below (also from Ghana Web) shows candidates, percentage of votes received, and. more importantly for our purposes, raw vote total:


The combined number of votes in parentheses below each candidate's name comes to 10,995,262. Eighty thousand votes represents 0.73% of the almost eleven million votes cast. The margin of victory between the top two vote-getters was 325,863 votes and they were separated by 2.96% of the total vote.

As far as elections go, having the margin of error less than the margin of victory is a good thing. In this case 0.73% < 2.96% means that the 80,000 unverified votes could not have affected who received the most votes.

Moreover, no one yet asserts that votes cast without fingerprint biometric verification could have favored any one candidate either because there was a systematic attempt to circumvent the biometric verification for fraudulent purposes or because of a geographic disparity in the 80,000 (maximum) exceptions that might have favored one candidate over another.

The bigger story appears to be:
99.27% of the votes in the recent election were cast by biometrically verified legitimate voters.

The last time there was a presidential election, that number was zero and given increased familiarity with the technology and expected improvements in both biometric hardware and software, expect that 99.27% number to increase for the next election.

Ghana, and other countries contemplating fully biometric elections should be heartened by these results.




Countries are coming to know their poor by name

The Economist, has published a really good piece about the progress made in reducing global extreme poverty over the last twenty years and what it might take to finish the job over the next twenty.


Biometric smart cards get a mention toward the end in the passage below, but this is not a biometrics story, it's a story of how and why poverty, which used to be an effect of scarcity, can now be defined and addressed as a series of organizational challenges. Biometrics are helping people meet those challenges and we're proud of the work we've done in helping that process along.



Poverty: Not always with us (The Economist)
[...B]y 2030 nearly two-thirds of the world’s poor will be living in states now deemed “fragile” (like the Congo and Somalia). Much of the rest will be in middle-income countries. This poses a double dilemma for donors: middle-income countries do not really need aid, while fragile states cannot use it properly. A dramatic fall in poverty requires rethinking official assistance.

Yet all the problems of aid, Africa and the intractability of the final billion do not mask the big point about poverty reduction: it has been a hugely positive story and could become even more so. As a social problem, poverty has been transformed. Thanks partly to new technology, the poor are no longer an undifferentiated mass. Identification schemes are becoming large enough—India has issued hundreds of millions of biometric smart cards—that countries are coming to know their poor literally by name. That in turn enables social programmes to be better targeted, studied and improved. Conditional cash-transfer schemes like Mexico’s Oportunidades and Brazil’s Bolsa Família have all but eradicated extreme poverty in those countries.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Five Country Conference increases interoperability

NEW ZEALAND: Fingerprints catch out immigration fraudster (TV NZ)
[Immigration New Zealand] found that her fingerprints matched those of a person who had entered Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom using different names.

INZ says landmark cooperation between authorities in all four countries resulted in the successful prosecution.

INZ's Identity Services manager Jacqui Martin says this is the first time evidence like fingerprints gathered as a result of cooperation under the Five Countries Conference (FCC) has been used in a prosecution for immigration fraud.
Score one for the Five Country Conference.

Face rec for quality assurance

Edinburgh Airport installs biometric system to track passenger movements (Computerworld UK)
An anonymous facial image is taken of each passenger as they check in and the time it takes each to reach certain waypoints plotted over time. If this time breaches a pre-set parameter for enough passengers, alerts can be generated.

The principle is that moving passengers from check in to the terminal increases their satisfaction with that airport and boosts the amount of time they have to spend money in the retail outlets that generate profit for airports.

The system can also be used to track the movement of passengers through the airport as a whole.
This is another really interesting application for facial recognition technology and, unlike other uses of face technology better described as demographic detection, this one actually is a true face recognition application.

Although it is a true face recognition application, it isn't really an ID application so long as the facial image taken at the time of passenger is not linked to other personal information and it is deleted after the person reaches the "finish line."

The item of interest to airports in this case is the length of time it takes real individuals to travel through various points between check in and the jetway. It's a more sophisticated measure than a simple count and real-world measurement wasn't easily automated before face recognition technology.

Airports in the UK have been early adopters of face recognition for this application because they are held to certain performance metrics (and subject to fines) for airport throughput. Having accurate real-time information on passenger flows can inform on-the-fly staffing decisions. For example, additional security screeners can be dispatched in the event a slow-down is detected, saving passenger time and the airport money.

Though airports have been early adopters, this basic application has obvious utility in shopping malls, department stores, planning for emergency evacuations, and large facility scheduling.

SecurLinx has experience in the design and deployment of this type of system. Our FaceTrac system is readily adapted to the challenge of on-the-fly enrollment, finish-line matching, reporting, and automatically purging image data.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Libya ponders national ID as an instrument of economic development

Libya takes steps to fight corruption (Foreign Policy - Reg. req.)
Libya's General National Congress (GNC) is debating the newly introduced transparency and anti-corruption bill which they expect to vote on in the next few weeks. The Libyan government, led by Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, is taking practical steps toward fighting corruption and improving transparency in public institutions, following alarming reports of rampant corruption and financial waste in the public sector. These steps are also driven by huge public demand for immediate anti-corruption measures and transparency in post-revolution Libya.

On February 7, the government announced the National Identification Numbers (NID) project. By giving each person a unique number, the government will be able make sure that transfers and payments are going to the right people and avoid manipulations to the system.
It's hard to help people if you can't identify them.
UNITED STATES: The Homeland Security Department is buying $100 million worth of services to issue staff at all agencies smartcards with iris and facial recognition capabilities. (Next Gov)

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Dikshit sics Nilekani on banks

CM seeks Nilekani’s intervention to clear obstacles in UID cash transfer (Indian Express)
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Monday sought Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chairman Nandan Nilekani's intervention in overcoming obstacles in opening accounts in banks, which the government maintained, had not rendered active cooperation. Dikshit said she also plans to write a letter to the Union Finance Minister in this regard shortly.

Following a meeting with Nilekani, Dikshit said the government was keen on increasing the number of beneficiaries under the Aadhaar-based direct cash transfers. "We hope to increase intended beneficiaries in Delhi to at least 30 lakh but there are still obstacles in opening bank accounts. This results in difficulties for beneficiaries," Dikshit said.
It was about a year ago that Chief Minister Dikshit reached out to Mr. Nilekani to help lift the pace of UID enrollment in Delhi.

Delhi is one of the most populated cities in the world. It's also right next to/contains India's capital of New Delhi (see Delhi or New Delhi: What’s the Delhio?). So, if UID is to be considered a success at streamlining the welfare system through cash transfers, it needs to succeed in Delhi.

Electoral fraud: Purging and caging and spoiling. Oh, my!

The Likely Contemptible Ways of Votes Stealing (Ghana Web)
This article looks at how election “stealers” can suppress or steal votes in a myriad of ways. The contemptible ways may encompass purging and/or caging voter lists, as well as spoiling, ejecting, blocking, rejecting, "computerization”," tossing, and stuffing ballots(over voting).

Friday, May 24, 2013

Face recognition infographic

MorphoTrust USA publishes infographic to shed light on facial recognition for law enforcement (Biometric Update - pdf)

The pdf is definitely worth a glance.

Czech Republic: ID hack, performance art, social commentary

How 12 Men Morphed Identities and Still Voted, Bought Guns, and Got Married (Motherboard)
Source: ZTOHOVEN
Basically, twelve members of the collective swapped identities, snagging themselves digitally-altered ID cards that featured blended images of their portrait and another person's. Make Money Not Art explains further: "With the same haircut, twelve members of Ztohoven took a portrait pictures and using the Morphing software they merged every two faces into one. They applied for new IDs with these photos, but each of them used the name of his alter-ego."

For six months, they then lived under each others' identities, purchasing guns, voting, and even getting married. They documented the entire project, which, in a nod to Kafka's identity-thieved Josef, they called Citizen K.





Sounds like an advertisement for facial recognition audits of ID card applications.

Official web page for "Citizen K." (English)






Permanent UID service centers

UIDAI launches new services, permanent enrolment centres (NetIndian)
The services that were launched today are Authentication service using Iris, Authentication service using One-Time PIN and eKYC (Electronic- Know Your Customer) service.

Launching the services, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said they would give a boost to the use of the Aadhar identity platform for authenticating the identity of people.

"This is a transformational initiative, and I am sure the Aam Aadmi (common man) will start reaping the benefits of the Aadhaar project in the near future," he said.

Face Rec: $6.5B at 27.7% CAGR by 2018

Facial recognition market to be worth $6.5 billion by 2018 (Markets and Markets) — The facial recognition market has been forecast to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.7% over the next five years, rising from a valuation of $1.92 billion at the beginning of 2013, to hit a market value of $6.50 billion by 2018.

Interview with James Wayman

Very good interview at Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) with James Wayman on face recognition and other biometrics. Mr. Wayman is the former director of the National Biometric Test Center at San Jose State University and is now an administrator in its Office of Graduate Studies and Research.

Will Face Recognition Ever Capture Criminals? (IEEE.org)
Okay, so, let’s start historically with the technology. It was developed in the early 1960s by a fellow named Woodrow W. Bledsoe, who I believe was an IEEE member. He later retired at the University of Texas at Austin. And what he was doing was marking facial images by hand—the centers of the eyes, the corners of the eyes, the corners of the lips, and the like. And then he projected these marks onto a sphere and he rotated the sphere, trying to get marks from two different images to line up, at which point he could say, aha, these are from the same person.

Well, all of this hand marking didn’t work so well, and in the late 1980s, Sirovich and Kirby came out with this very simplistic idea that is so simple it sounds like it’ll never possibly work, but it did."
For those who prefer listening to reading, there's also a podcast...

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

What happens when you run satellite images through a face recognition engine?

It has been a long time since we've had a biometrics in art post...

These Artists Are Mapping the Earth ... With Facial Recognition Software (The Atlantic)  
Have you ever looked up into the sky and seen a cloud that vaguely resembles your mom? Or gazed at the twisted trunk of a tree, only to see an old man staring back at you? Then you have experienced pareidolia, the human mind's tendency to read significance into random stimuli. You have learned what children and poets have long held true: that anything -- any place -- can be a canvas for a human face.
Source: onformative.com. Cropping ours.




Also: check out the artists' site: onformative.com. There are a lot more images there.
The way we perceive our environment is a complex procedure. By the help of our vision we are able to recognize friends within a huge crowd, approximate the speed of an oncoming car or simply admire a painting. One of human’s most characteristic features is our desire to detect patterns. We use this ability to penetrate into the detailed secrets of nature. However we also tend to use this ability to enrich our imagination. Hence we recognize meaningful shapes in clouds or detect a great bear upon astrological observations.

Fasten your seat-belts...

When IT & Security Worlds Collide (IFSEC Global)
[...C]onverged security marries physical, logical, and information security with risk management, business continuity, and disaster recovery on a common network enabled by IT on the IP network. As security professionals, whether we like it or not, this trend is not only here to stay but destined to grow...

Face recognition, marketing and privacy

It's Your Face. Or Is It? (Press Release at Marketwire)
"From a marketer's point of view it's heaven. They can tailor ads, products, even prices based on your age, tax bracket, social media persona and purchasing habits. Marketers will pay handsomely for that information." For example, NEC has developed a marketing service utilizing facial recognition technology. It estimates the age and sex of customers, along with the dates and number of times that customers go to each store. This information is then analyzed to help predict trends in customer behavior and shopping frequency.

"From a consumer's point of view this could be a nightmare -- the ultimate invasion of privacy."

Johnson continues, "I'm not just a brand strategist. I'm also a consumer. And I'd like to speak with the voice of reason. New technology can offer enormous benefits. It also comes with enormous responsibility." Johnson firmly believes we are collectively charged with that responsibility. We have to ensure this facial recognition technology does not become an all out assault on our privacy. "Do we want our children to be added to these facial databases? Probably not. Do we ourselves want to be added without our knowledge or permission? Probably not."
We tackled the very interesting topics of marketing and the privacy of faces in this post from 2011.

It's also worth noting that there are two different ways facial recognition technology can be applied to marketing in the bricks-and-mortar world. True face recognition matching a face to a unique individual so as to send a marketing message tailored for that one person is still pretty hard. Inferring demographic traits of a person by using facial analysis technologies does not rely on a unique identification and may provide a bigger bang for the buck (ROI) than true facial recognition.

IDaaS

Identity as a Service poised for run in enterprise (ZDNet)
Identity and Access as a Service is poised for a strong run at enterprises of all size, and those who have done their homework will dodge the hype and know what's right for them and what's not.

By the end of 2015, Identity and Access as a Service (IDaaS) will account for 25% of all new identity and access management sales, compared with 5% in 2012, according to recent Gartner research "Are You and the IDaaS Market Ready for Each Other?" [ed. link in orig]

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The US Army's big data cloud app suite

Army demonstrates disputed intelligence system (Army Times)
“It is globally deployed, this is not a system that is in the lab, this is a system that is supporting and has supported nine corps, 38 divisions, 138 brigades,” said Lt. Gen. Mary Legere, the the Army’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence. “It supports today our operations in Afghanistan and the greater Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, Korea and anywhere you have soldiers who are deployed.”
...
The Army’s cloud-based system — called the Distributed Common Ground System-Army — collects raw intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data from 600 sources, including battlefield reports, biometrics databases, unmanned aerial systems and manned reconnaissance aircraft, as well as joint, national and strategic sources. From there, analysts can connect the dots using a variety of software tools, putting actionable intelligence in the hands of battlefield commanders.
Forty apps using data from 600 sources.

Sameer Sharma gets it...

Making cash transfers work: A one-size-fits-all plan to implement cash transfers is unlikely to work in India. Tailoring to local needs is the key
If cash transfers are to fulfil their promise of being a “game changer”, then a paradigm shift has to occur from the supply-to-demand-side subventions. Top driven supply-side interventions get morphed beyond recognition as they pass through several implementation layers.

Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom’s work in developing countries shows how this happens: in the unique culture of India, people rely more on locally crafted “rules in use”, as opposed to drilled down “rules in form”. And such transformation can be reduced by minimizing the distance between the rules in form and use. This can happen, for example, by giving greater choice to the poor to make the best use of money depending on situational rules in use.


Read the whole thing and if you haven't watched this video yet, here's another chance.




See also:
BigID and the changing nature of national identity infrastructures

US: Entry/exit dominating today's biometrics news

An amendment to the immigration bill being discussed in the Senate Judiciary Committee has been all over the news this morning.

See:
Senators propose fingerprinting at airport security (Click Orlando), and
US senators approve immigration changes requiring fingerprint system at 30 airports (Truth Dive)

This Reuters piece is more detailed:
US panel votes to speed up airport fingerprinting of immigrants (Reuters)
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-5 for an amendment to a wide-ranging immigration bill that would require the installation of devices to check immigrants' fingerprints at the 10 busiest U.S. airports within two years of enactment of the legislation.

Checks currently are made at airports for foreigners arriving and re-entering the country but not when they leave. "It's just a matter of having records we can keep so we know where we're going," Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah told reporters of his successful amendment.
The committee's work commands worldwide attention because it's personal to many people because of their own travel habits, aspirations for immigration or education, or the living situation of friends or loved-ones.

It is also of worldwide importance because the United States will have a large role to play in any eventual interoperable international system accounting for international travel.

The amendment adopted by the committee would, in the event of the bill's passage, institute a fingerprint-based entry/exit system starting with the ten busiest U.S. airports over two years.

The best framing I have read of the lack of-, case for-, and challenges associated with a decent entry/exit system is David Grant's Immigration reform: What to do about those who arrive legally but never leave?

And in March, we wrote:
[... R]elevant to integrating the entry and exit points is the percentage of international travelers who enter a country through one international travel node and depart the country from another.

The more nodes, the more travelers, the more complex the travel patterns of international visitors, all of these things place additional pressures on any sort of entry/exit system and these complexities don't necessarily increase as a linear function.

Of course all of this has bearing on the United States which has every challenge there is. It's not surprising that, biometrics or no biometrics, the US lacks a comprehensive integrated entry/exit system. A couple of good pilot projects might go a long way towards getting an idea of the exact scope of some of the challenges, though. [emph. added]
With that in mind, does the committee's amendment fit in with the idea of a "good pilot" project? I think so. Despite reluctance to call anything happening in the ten busiest airports in the country a "pilot project," so as not to trivialize the challenges involved, the scope of a truly comprehensive entry/exit system accounting for all air, sea and land transport is so vast that it does make "pilot project" seem appropriate here.

But in order for this avenue to a pilot actually to lead there, even in two years, the whole immigration bill currently being fashioned in the Judiciary Committee must pass the full U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Even if the broader immigration overhaul fails to attract majority legislative support, the 13-5 committee vote may bode well for the pilot on a stand-alone basis. You have to start somewhere.




May BiometricChat with Maxine Most from Acuity Market Intelligence

UPDATE II:
The transcript of the chat is now available.


UPDATE and bump:
John has published the questions to be discussed Thursday:

1. How can biometric vendors take a more active role in educating the public on misunderstandings about the technology to promote wider acceptance?

2. What are some of the mistakes you have observed from biometric vendors taking products to market that could have been avoided or may have adversely affected the success of their solutions? What advice can you offer vendors who are researching and developing new products and solutions that can help them to be successful?

3. What is your interpretation of recent biometric M&A activity and what types of trends can we expect to see in the near future?

4. Will the increased demand for biometric technology help to open the door for its use in additional verticals? If so, what markets do you feel can benefit the most from the technology?

5. I remember some time ago you were predicting that the private sector and public sector would generate about the same amount of revenue by 2014. Is that prediction still on target and what private sector markets to you see getting the most traction?

6. What area of the world do you feel holds the most potential for continued growth of biometric deployments and why?


Tuesday, May 13, 2013



When:
May 23, 2013 11:00 am EST, 8:00 am PST, 16:00 pm BST, 17:00 pm (CEST), 23:00 pm (SGT), 0:00 (JST)

Where:
tweetchat.com/room/biometricchat (or Twitter hashtag #biometricchat)

Host:
John at M2SYS

Guest:
Maxine Most of Acuity Market Intelligence. Maxine is a biometrics industry consultant. Acuity Market Intelligence has been involved in the biometrics marketplace for more than 10 years.

Topics:
  • Biometrics strategic market development
  • Maxine’s interpretation of industry mergers & acquisitions
  • What other markets could benefit from biometric technology
  • Private and public sector growth discrepancies
  • What areas of the world will continue to see strong growth for biometric deployments in the future

What is the BiometricChat:
Janet Fouts, at her blog, describes the format:
Twitter chats, sometimes known as a Twitter party or a tweet chat, happen when a group of people all tweet about the same topic using a specific tag (#) called a hashtag that allows it to be followed on Twitter. The chats are at a specific time and often repeat weekly or bi-weekly or are only at announced times.
There's more really good information at the link for those who might be wondering what this whole tweet chat thing is all about.

This one, the #biometricchat,  is a discussion about a different topic of interest in the biometrics landscape each month. It's like an interview you can participate in.



More at the M2SYS blog.


Earlier topics have included:
Privacy
Mobile biometrics
Workforce management
Biometrics in the cloud
Law enforcement
Privacy again
Biometrics for global development
Large-scale deployments
The global biometrics industry


Modalities such as iris and voice have also come in for individual attention.

I always enjoy these. Many thanks to John at M2SYS for putting these together.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Uganda President: Biometric voter verification for 2016

Museveni approves thumbprint use in 2016 (Daily Monitor)
“In future, all that [multiple voting] will stop. We are importing machines for thumb printing in 2016. We shall use thumbprints to know who this is and if you try to steal, the machine will throw you out,” Mr Museveni is quoted in a State House statement [ed. Yoweri Museveni is the president of Uganda].

Mr Museveni’s announcement comes weeks after the Electoral Commission (EC) released a roadmap to guide political parties and voters ahead of the 2016 polls which did not feature the use of thumbprint machines.

Uganda

The article's commenters aren't optimistic.

India: Kerala police adopting face recognition for surveillance

Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple
Photo: Rainer Haessner
Face-recognition tool to curb crime (The Hindu)
The State police will soon have the latest face-recognition technology integrated with its expanding surveillance camera network to screen entry and exit points of airports, railway stations, stadiums, and key government offices for persons with criminal or terror links. Senior police officers say the technology is likely to be implemented first at the landmark Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple here and later at other locations, including vital establishments vulnerable to sabotage in Kochi and Kozhikode.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Biometrics: A New Intelligence Discipline

New technological choices bring challenges (C4ISR Journal)
The intelligence community is pushing to make biometrically enabled intelligence — the art of identifying people by fingerprints, digital mugshots, iris scans or DNA — a regular part of business.
...
But other technologies are coming online. Facial recognition algorithms could someday riffle through mugshot databases to find matches much as fingerprint algorithms do today. Iris-matching technology is another field under development. Authorities around the world are rapidly switching from fingerprints to iris scans for verifying the identities of travelers and workers, and iris databases are growing. And some biometrics experts are aiming for multimodal biometrics in which fingerprint matches would be combined with facial recognition and other measurements to determine someone’s identity with maximum confidence.
Read the whole thing.

BigID and the changing nature of national identity infrastructures

Nigeria's new ID has apps!

Credit card linked to Nigerian ID (Financial Mail)
In the programme's first phase, Nigerians aged 16 and older and all who have been resident there for more than two years will get the new multipurpose ID, which has 13 applications. It is expected that up to 13m Nigerians will use the product in the first phase.

Among the apps is MasterCard's prepaid technology, which will give cardholders the ability to make electronic payments. MasterCard says this will also have a positive impact on Nigerians who until now have not had access to mainstream financial services.
This one bears keeping an eye on.

In a couple of pioneering cases, the very concept of "The ID" is shifting

To most people, an ID looks a lot like a product — something useful that the government sells to an individual. Pay your fee; get your card. Lose your card; buy a new one.

India and Nigeria (South Africa is pretty bold, too) are pointing the way toward a future where ID isn't just a product, though no government is going to give up its ID card product line any time soon. The future as these countries see it is ID as a government-backed platform supporting an ID ecosystem. They have the bucket (database structure). Now it's being filled (populated). If they get the application programming interface/s (API) right, fasten your seat belt. Things will get really interesting really fast as all sorts of apps hooking into the ID infrastructure become available. Biometric technologies will be an integral part of this transition to "BigID."

UPDATE:
See also:
Brainstorming UID with Srikanth Nadhamuni
The video there is very informaative and extremely worthwhile.

UPDATE II:
I forgot to mention the UAE as another forward-thinking ID environment. The UAE ID is set to be deployed on smartphones.

Tanzania: Biometric voter registration without biometric verification at the polls

Tanzania: BVR Is for Voter Registration, Not Voting, Says NEC (All Africa)
NEC Vice-Chairman Judge (retired) Hamid Mahmoud Hamid clarified that people should take note of the fact that the system will only be used for registering voters and not for voting purposes. The commission's Head of PNVR and ICT, Dr Sisti Cariah, said NEC will collaborate with the National Identification Authority (NIDA) to reduce costs since the latter is currently doing the same in its national identification project.

Tanzania


Here's a piece, slightly edited, that we posted when initially it was reported that Ghana would forego biometric voter verification. Ultimately, Ghana decided to go for biometric voter verification, and despite some imperfections and a simmering dispute among political parties, they seem to have pulled it off. The same issues apply to the Tanzania voting infrastructure.

Originally posted May 15, 2012:
Without biometric verification, the whole enrollment exercise turns on the ID document. A document-dependent electoral system can be successful if three conditions are met: The process whereby legitimate documents are issued is very rigorous; The document is extremely difficult to counterfeit; And there is no significant corruption of the ballot-stuffing or ballot destroying variety.

Rigor in the document creation would include such measures as a real-time biometric query against the database of registered voters before issuing a new registration card in order to prevent duplicate registrations. Making a document difficult to forge involves high tech printing techniques or embedded biometrics for later verification. The corruption part is a function of culture and institutional controls.

Avoiding over-reliance on the physical ID document is perhaps the greatest benefit of using biometrics in elections. If there is no biometric voter verification, the only voting requirement is to have a more-or-less convincing registration card with a more-or-less convincing photo on it.

Biometric verification, by making the finger rather than the paper the overriding criterion for receiving a blank ballot, confers two tremendous advantages. Multiple voting can be made extremely difficult even for people who have multiple government issued registration cards. Second, ballot stuffing can be curbed because an audit of the total number of votes recorded can be compared to the number of fingerprints verified on election day as legitimate voters.

By creating the perception that the electoral apparatus is more effective than it really is, implementing a biometric voter enrollment system without biometric voter verification could even lead to more electoral uncertainty than the system being replaced.

A well-thought-out biometric voting system can reduce fraudulent voting to very low levels but it's also possible to spend a lot of money on a leaky system that involves biometrics without accomplishing much in the way improving the integrity of the vote.
The same sort of analysis can, and should be applied in Tanzania.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Global biometrics market is anticipated to reach USD 20 Billion by 2018

Global Biometrics Market is Well Poised to Cross USD 20 Billion by 2018 Says TechSci Research (Press Release via Digital Journal)
The major share in biometrics technology has been figuratively captured by fingerprint recognition technology (AFIS & Non-AFIS). However, with the emergence of a lot of companies in this sector such as “Fujitsu Ltd” the market is poised for a stiff competition.

The government organizations have been the leading contributor to the industry which is anticipated to continue leading the market. In addition to that, large corporates have adopted biometric for logical as well as access control applications to increase the trust among their customers and employees.

Asia is anticipated to overtake North America by 2018 on account of huge growth in security market in the countries such as China and India. With the increasing IT security spending and growing government project in China, Indonesia, India and others will spur the demand for biometric systems.

Logical access control applications are growing rapidly with the increase in computer hardware and Internet. In addition, vein recognition technology is growing rapidly due to advancement in security management. Also, with the introduction of multimodal biometrics, the market is expected to touch new heights in the coming years.

2013-2018: Face recognition to grow faster than biometrics as a whole

The global biometric market is expected to grow slowly at an estimated Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 22.9% as compared to the facial recognition market growth of 27.7% during the forecasted period of 2013 to 2018. (Markets & Markets)

Plenty of other good data points at the link. Make sure you hit the "Summary" tab.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Biometrics for patient ID gaining momentum

Biometric technology combats medical identity theft (Business Week)
Data breaches at hospitals may cost the U.S. health-care industry as much as $7 billion a year, according to the Ponemon Institute, a Michigan-based organization that studies privacy, data protection, and security. And that doesn’t count the unknown cost of fraudulent use of information from lost or stolen insurance cards and drivers licenses. HCA Holdings (HCA) hospitals in London and many U.S. providers have a solution: using biometric technology to verify patient identities. “If you don’t have a good way of authenticating legitimate users,” says Ponemon Chairman Larry Ponemon, “whatever you do on the other side isn’t going to be good enough.”

Biometric devices that recognize people’s physical traits—think iris scanners or palm vein readers—are no longer the stuff of spy movies or border control.

Biometric authentication for cloud storage

Intel's McAfee brings biometric authentication to cloud storage (Computer World UK)
Intel is introducing new ideas to secure the public cloud, offering a service in which online files can be accessed after users are verified by an authentication scheme including face and voice recognition.

McAfee, a unit of Intel, is adding a product called LiveSafe that will offer 1GB of online storage that can be accessed through biometric authentication. LiveSafe has a Web-based management dashboard, and users can be authenticated through face recognition, voice or by punching in a PIN. LiveSafe also includes antivirus and other security features.

'Wired' drops biometric fly into Senate's immigration ointment

Wired threw the double whammy of "Biometric" and "National ID" into the middle of the Senate and national debate on overhauling the U.S. immigration system.

The article that touched it all this off is:

Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform (Wired)
The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.
Organs on both sides of the American political scene — the left-leaning Daily Beast and the right-leaning Daily Caller — found the Wired piece wanting.

The Immigration Bill does not create a 'biometric database of all adult Americans' (Daily Beast)
The idea of the government creating a massive biometric database for virtually all adult Americans is indeed terrifying, and if the story was true, would be cause for genuine outrage

Fortunately, Wired's assertion is false. Here are the facts: [ed. article continues]
‘Wired’s attack on immigration reform gets biometrics wrong (Daily Caller) 
Any E-Verify system that could actually prevent fraud will necessarily be more intrusive than the current system. In this case, an effort is being made to guarantee job applicants actually are who they say they are — that they are not merely stealing someone else’s social security number.

This is not to say we shouldn't be vigilant in regards to protecting our civil liberties. There is a natural tension at play as immigration reformers work to create a system that actually prevents the employment of illegals who wish to skirt the law.
Both articles also run with a novel (to me) argument, potentially from the same source, that a face photo isn't really biometric in nature.

Daily Beast:
That isn't a "biometric" data set by any reasonable definition. As a Senate aide told me: [ed. cont'd]
Daily Caller:
There is also a semantics problem with the Wired story; photographs, I am told, don’t technically qualify as “biometrics.” 
That will come as quite a shock to many people who have been developing facial recognition algorithms for a decade or more and the thousands of people who use facial recognition technologies already. If drivers license-style photos of faces aren't reasonably good proxies for unique identifiers, why do photo ID's exist in the first place?



UPDATE:
David Bier writing at OpenMarket.org provides valuable commentary in Sorry, Daily Beast: E-Verify Will Be National ID.

This bit reinforces the point we made above:
Never mind how experts or the general public use the word, the phrase biometric identification has a specific legal definition. Under 46 USC 70123, “the term “biometric identification” means use of fingerprint and digital photography images and facial and iris scan technology and any other technology considered applicable by the Department of Homeland Security.” In other words, the government itself defines photographs as biometric identification. [ed. all emphasis and link in orig.]

Monday, May 13, 2013

TWIC hasn't been popular with transportation workers...

...but I get the sense that the transportation workers don't oppose the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) on principle, rather, implementation just hasn't worked out. The U.S. General Accounting Office seems to share workers' assessment.

Scrap TWIC? GAO report slams port credential program (Land Line Magazine)
Truck drivers and others who work at U.S. ports have grumbled for years about the expenses and hassles of obtaining a Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC.

TWIC – a biometric security card capable of storing fingerprints, residency documents and other information – was designed to make ports and major warehouse areas less vulnerable to potential terrorists.

A federal investigative report released this week says the TWIC program’s efforts to implement a remote card reader system haven’t worked, and said Congress should consider scrapping the 10-year-old billion-dollar program altogether and starting over with a new credential.
As we have discussed in other TWIC-related posts, the interoperability issues involved in having one card that works at every port, warehouse, transshipment hub, border, etc. haven't been overcome and the administrative load on those required to carry the card have been heavy.

UPDATE:
See also:
TSA Defends TWIC Reader Program (Homeland Security Today)
"TWIC readers determine whether a card is authentic, valid and issued by TSA," Sadler testified. "The readers also check that the card has not expired and, by accessing the cancelled card list, can determine if the card has been revoked or reported lost or stolen. When used in the biometric mode, readers confirm through a biometric fingerprint match that the person using the card is the rightful owner of the card. The TWIC card and reader system can perform these checks virtually anywhere with portable or fixed readers because connectivity to an external database is not required. [ed. emphasis mine]"
How does the italicized part work? Without at least intermittent connectivity to an external database how are lost cards to be rejected?

PayPal would prefer prints to passwords, PIN's. But...

...as the article concludes, it's not necessarily an either/or proposition.

Online financial services providers are looking forward to a future where they are less reliant on password technology for authenticating their customers' identities on line and they seem to have very open minds re biometrics. But can biometrics supplant the password altogether?

PayPal wants to get rid of passwords in favor of biometric security (SlashGear)
However, he [ed. PayPal chief information security officer Michael Barrett] noted that passwords simply won’t go away after biometrics are introduced. It’ll certainly take a while before a new standard can completely take over, especially considering that passwords have been the standard for so many years. So while we could see smartphones with integrated fingerprint scanners, it could be a few years before a new security standard takes over full-time.
Biometrics can be used to overcome some of the limitations of passwords in use cases important to PayPal.

A biometric template is like a really long password your body makes — the example below uses 800 hexadecimal characters — in that sense biometrics allow for more complex passwords the user doesn't have to remember or write down.

Nevertheless (and in agreement with the quoted article's concluding paragraphs), rather than making passwords obsolete, biometrics will most probably be used to return the the password to the simplicity of the PIN era, ending the arms race that has required the use of longer, more complex, and more frequently changing passwords.




Real fingerprint template:
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

Friday, May 10, 2013

Biometric systems market to hit a value of $20 billion by 2018 (Companies and Markets)
Social networking sites are anticipated to begin using biometrics for authentication. The increasing use of mobile/tablet based applications will encourage mobile industry leaders like Apple and Google to implement biometrics in to mobile devices.

The market for fingerprint biometric technologies is expected to see the largest increase with an annual growth rate of 19.6 percent. It is currently the main source of revenues in the biometrics market totalling $2.7 billion and by 2015 it will grow to reach more than $6 billion.

The second largest segment in biometrics, the market for face, iris, vein, and voice recognition technologies, will expand to $3.5 billion, from its current size of roughly $1.4 billion.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Emerging ID concensus

The twin pillars of international cooperation on economic and financial order have recently been making positive statements about India's UID project.

IMF: Direct cash through Aadhaar to save 0.5% of GDP for India (The New Indian Express)

World Bank chief: Aadhaar to help eradicate poverty (Business Standard)


Former Chief of Staff to President Clinton, John Podesta also goes on the record with Casey Dunning for the Guardian:
We can end poverty, but the methods might surprise you
New technologies mean that states can craft their programs to help specifically the most vulnerable populations, and that they can do so efficiently. The widespread use of mobile phones, analytics and biometric technology lets a country implement social safety nets with far greater speed and efficacy than previously imagined. The government of India was able to enroll 200 million people in a national biometric ID effort in less than two years, modernizing a vital system that provides the poorest of the poor with food assistance, education vouchers and job opportunities.
Throw in the Center for Global Development Lecture: Technology to Leapfrog Development, by UID chief Nandan Nilekani, and it looks like an emerging international development consensus is emerging around the idea of "ID as Development."

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

New biometrics blog -- Biometric Authentication: The Future of Security

Check them out here: Biometric Authentication: The Future of Security

So far, the folks at Biometric Authentication: The Future of Security have posting a longish-form entry every ten days or so since early March.

We'll keep an eye out.

New technical approaches to facial recognition technology

The Animetrics press release below contains some really interesting information about facial recognition innovation.

Early adopters and potential adopters of facial recognition technology have been pressing hard for improved performance. Animetrics and others have responded by coming up with automated ways to improve the quality of the data processed through to the template generation software for matching. The press release does a very good job of describing Animetrics approach.

Animetrics Unveils ID-Ready, Cloud-Based Facial Biometric System (Animetrics Press Release)
The service takes a grainy, partial view, angulated 2D facial image, applies 2D-to-3D algorithms and corrects the pose of the face, and makes it ID-Ready for most any facial recognition system.

“ID Ready essentially takes a bad image and makes a mugshot out of it,” said Paul Schuepp, chief executive officer of Animetrics.

Most facial recognition systems require photos be a frontal view of a face in order to make a positive match. However, most photos studied by law enforcement are of faces that are rotated, “off pose” and are captured by low resolution video security cameras or long distance telephoto surveillance cameras.

“This type of uncontrolled imagery renders face recognition systems impractical because of the poor matching results, if results occur at all,” says Schuepp.

Here’s how the system works: law enforcement personnel upload a 2D photo to Animetrics servers at id.ready.animetrics.com and the ID Ready system applies facial feature point detection (eyes, nose tip, mouth, etc.) to accurately find the face and specify the parts Fine-tuning is possible by the user positioning three red crosshairs over both eyes and tip of the nose.

From there a 3D model is created and a new 2D resultant image that is pose-corrected to zero for facial pitch, yaw, and roll along the x, y and z axis.
Read further and you'll discover that the innovation doesn't stop with the technology. The sales/distribution model is noteworthy, as well.

Biometrics for mobile ID gaining acceptance among telecoms

Mobile biometrics gaining traction, 'common' by 2015 (ZDNet)
Tracy Hulver, chief identity strategist at Verizon enterprise solutions, said: "Biometrics, without a doubt, will become more prevalent as a component or add-on to mobile devices in the coming years."

Proving people are who they say they are has been a challenge for digital security since computers have been in use, according to Hulver. Biometrics, he added, provided a "multifactor" authentication scheme: pairing "something you know" such as a user ID and password combination, with "something you are".
She ought to know what she's talking about.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The Hamdroid

...or maybe it's the Andster. At any rate, the Android Hamster or Hamster for Android is on it's way and whatever the marketers decide to go with, the combination of a reliable, affordable, off-the-shelf, USB fingerprint reader and reliable, affordable, off-the-shelf, tablet devices could be a real game changer.

Artwork not endorsed/approved by Google or SecuGen

Now, for around than $150 all in, tinkerers can purchase a staggering array of hardware and operate it on an open platform. I can't wait to see what people do with that power. Even before this, folks were applying biometrics to more things than any one person could possibly imagine.

The SecuGen Hamster sells for as low as $79.00.
Android tablets are available for as low as $70.00. I saw some sales circulars in the Sunday paper (Wal-Mart & Best Buy) advertising 7 in. tablets with front-facing cameras and Wi-Fi for $69.99.


Secugen releases fingerprint authentication SDK for Android (Biometric Update)
SecuGen has just announced the release of its FDx SDK Pro for Android.

According to the company, this new SDK will allow developers to add fingerprint authentication to their Android-based software on ARM tablets and smart phones using SecuGen’s Hamster IV and Hamster Plus fingerprint readers. This SDK also incorporates SecuGen’s MINEX tested, FIPS 201/PIV complicate template extraction and matching algorithms.

“We are very excited to be able to offer Android compatibility for our fingerprint readers,” Dan Riley, VP of engineering at SecuGen said. “Our partners have been asking for this and our role, as always, is to provide them with the tools that they need. The FDx SDK Pro for Android is one of several exciting new products that we will be bringing to market in 2013.”

UPDATE: Minor edits, added links to hardware, and bumped.

...also from Biometric Update

Trinidad and Tobago to roll out biometric system in July — I have to think the reference to retina scans and retina scanning in both the Biometric Update piece linked above and the original Trinidad Express piece upon which it relies, is in error. If an eye biometric is to be used, it almost certainly uses the iris.


See: Iris ≠ Retina


Dubai airport is adding 14 e-gates to the 14 it already uses

After only five months, the Dubai airport is doubling the amount of biometric e-gates available to passengers.


Dubai Airport’s Terminal 3 to get 14 more e-gates (Gulf News)
Dubai: The smart e-gate system which went operational at Dubai International airport’s Terminal 3 from January 1 this year is being expanded with 14 new e-gates becoming operational in a month’s time, taking the number of smart e-gates to 28, according to emaratech, the company which has engineered and powered the project.

The new smart e-gate system and the technology behind it were demonstrated at the 13th Airport Show. Sunil Gulia, emaratech’s technical manager, said the smart e-gate system has already seen close to 70,000 passengers registering since it started, but the number of times the gate has been used is much higher due to frequent fliers.
UPDATE:
20 seconds to get through UAE immigration, thanks to Smart Gates (The National)
Three passengers will be able to be processed each minute using the new system and "Smart Gates" - a vast improvement on the current average wait of about an hour.
The findBIOMETRICS Newsletter is out! — Featuring an interview with James W. Jimmy Bianco, V.P. of Sales and Marketing, CMI Time management
Gemalto snaps up Avalon Biometrics (Planet Biometrics) — Avalon Biometrics has announced its acquisition by French smart card giant Gemalto. Avalon Biometrics will become part of the e-Journey Business Group within Gemalto Government Programs Business Line.
Why facial recognition tech failed in the Boston bombing manhunt (Ars Technica) — This is a very good article that follows some of the contours of our Putting the mosaic together in Boston. I might have written the headline of the Ars Technica piece as "Why facial recognition tech was ill-suited to the Boston bombing manhunt," though.

How I learned to quit worrying and love the password

Even in a world saturated with biometric ID management applications, Username/Password verification will still be around.

For one thing, there is no logical limit to the number of password hoops users can be made to jump through, with increasing ID confidence with each consecutive correct answer. The web site for one financial services company I use asks for four pieces of information before allowing me to access the account:
  • user name (a sort-of password)
  • password
  • PIN (really just a shorter password)
  • (and since I have cookies pretty well locked down on my most-favored browser and haven't bothered to create some sort of exception) one of a menu of security questions is asked every time I log on.
Even though the human representatives employed by this company are uniformly delightful, efficient, and helpful individuals any number of other ID steps could be added to the process before I shunned the web site. After all, the ID steps on the phone with the call center are no less rigorous.

For another, people aren't the only things that claim an identity before accessing IT systems — computers do it, too, and they don't have biometrics. Passwords are also a cheap, well-understood, flexible technology that supports certain access control models that biometric techniques don't.

The challenge that system-designers interested in biometrics now face is to identify where using Username/Password is too risky (or piling them up, too cumbersome), and where biometrics can be used to reduce risk to an acceptable level. This requires identifying everything currently authenticated with a Username/Password and a determining which of these things are more efficiently protected using biometric authentication, then implementing the change. This is far easier said than done.

For starters, and we've been banging this drum for a long time, it's a really good idea to require biometrics for access to tables of stored usernames and passwords. The long and short of it, however, is that passwords are going to be around for a long, long time.

As long as that's the case, it's good to know a little more about how passwords work as a technology and the following article is a great resource.

Passwords: How to choose one and why we need them (PHYS ORG)
Perhaps it is because they are so ubiquitous that we take them for granted without ever really understanding how they work. Passwords are an example using of something you know to prove your identity. In security circles it is often said the way we prove our identity falls into three categories:
  • something you have, such as a bank card
  • something you are, such as some form of biometric such as a photograph of the user, fingerprint or iris scan
  • something you know, with passwords being the most common example

What are passwords really made of?

Well-designed password systems never store passwords directly. What's stored instead is
  • the hash – a cryptographic function that takes a sequence of characters or numbers and generates a sequence based on it
  • the salt – some additional characters which do not form part of the password, but are added during encryption to make it harder for hackers to hack password files
The output of a hash function tells you very little about its input so is very difficult to reverse. It takes vastly more computation to reverse a hash value than it takes to calculate it. When a password is entered into a system, the hash of the password and any salt value is calculated and compared with the stored value.
Read the whole thing. It's quite good, ending with two points upon which the author and I are in complete agreement: There is nothing as cheap and as well understood as passwords. They are likely to be around a while yet.

Like any other technology, there's a right way and a wrong way to use passwords. If you get to know them, when to use them, how to use them properly, and the techniques used to undermine them, your relationship with the password can be a long and happy one.

See also:
Why passwords are great;
More on the awesomeness of passwords;
Coopetition: Biometrics and Passwords and
Biometrics, passwords & the Illinois water plant hack attack

Tangentially related...

UPDATE: Government lab demonstrates stealth quantum security project (GIGAOM)
Quantum cryptography is supposed to be a kind of holy grail solution for securing the smart grid, cloud computing, and other sensitive networked resources. The technology is still experimental, with only a handful of companies globally providing quantum key distribution services. Now, researchers at Los Alamos National Lab have quietly revealed that they’ve successfully been running what amounts to a mini quantum internet for the past two-and-a-half years.

The basic premise of keeping information secret using quantum mechanical phenomena lies in what is popularly called the observer effect. A quantum message, sent as photons, will be permanently altered if someone observes it, so the sender and recipient will be able to tell if there was a breach.

Friday, May 3, 2013

US: Background check requirements for working in child care facilities

Fingerprint background checks for day care workers in Georgia (Biometric Update)
Georgia’s governor, Nathan Deal has just signed a bill into law that will see national fingerprint and criminal record searches performed for day care workers.
Georgia is joining the 32 states* requiring a check of the FBI fingerprint database and 30 states that require a sate-level fingerprint check for employment as a child care provider.

A table of state-by-state Child Care Center Regulations [pdf] compiled by Child Care Aware® of America shows which states require fingerprint searches of state and federal databases.

Here's a summary:


The linked pdf contains information on what type of background check (Federal fingerprints, state fingerprints, criminal record check, child abuse registries, sex offender registries) is conducted in each jurisdiction.

The document is current as of April 17, 2013 and the aforementioned table has notes changes in the law that aren't yet in force.

Observations:
A few states require a search against one of the fingerprint databases but not the other.
Many states require a search against both fingerprint databases but not the state's sex offender registry.




*plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Department of Defense. The study accounts for 52 political entities referred to as "states" throughout this post.

INDIA: Six people impersonated for 87 students on admittance tests (PaGaLGuY)
In a press conference held today at the NMIMS Mumbai campus, vice-chancellor Dr Rajan Saxena said that the school had filed an FIR about the impersonation on April 24, 2013. When asked if checks and balances could have been stronger during the NMAT stage itself to flag such impersonation he said, “In hindsight, it could have been but it is only because of the quality of the admission process that this has been detected.” Asked if the test would be made more secure next year he replied, "It would be difficult to say now. We will look at it." Unlike the Common Admissions Test (CAT) and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), the NMAT does not employ biometric scanning measures such as fingerprint or palm-vein profiling, used to prevent impersonation, during the test check-in process. Despite arguably weaker security measures, the NMAT costs Rs 1,650, higher than the CAT which costs Rs 1,600.
More expensive and less exact is a tough value proposition for a testing service to maintain unless, you know, the target customer is one who will pay more for less exactitude. That doesn't mean the universities have to go along with it, though.
Who know's what's going on here? Rumors that people were going to get cut off from subsidized LPG probably made some people mad, but it almost certainly made some people accelerate their plans to get a UID number.

UPDATE:

Confusion over LPG-Aadhaar link in Chennai (The Hindu)
LPG distributors of various oil companies in the city say they have not received any instructions about the scheme to link Aadhaar numbers to LPG subsidies.

The recent Central government announcement about plans to provide subsidies to LPG subscribers directly to their bank accounts from October 1 using the Aadhaar (unique identification) number has left residents and distributors, somewhat confused.


Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Get Aadhaar card or pay double for LPG from October (Times of India)


"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

— Arthur C. Clarke

Fingerprint led to arrest in Dollar General killings, detective testifies (Wichita Eagle)
Detective Tim Relph said a video camera showed the killer walking into the store and quickly leaving after shooting two people with a .22-caliber handgun. The killer tried to exit the store through an entrance door before realizing that the door wouldn’t open from the inside, Relph said. The finger and palm print left on that entrance door proved to be the key to solving the case, he said.

The shooting occurred at 8:01 p.m. on Nov. 30, Relph said, and a computerized fingerprint classification system identified Marshall as a possible suspect by 3:45 the next morning. By 4 a.m., he said, a fingerprint examiner confirmed that the print came from Marshall.

“By 4:30 in the morning there were 50 police officers looking for him,” Relph testified.


Shooting at 8:01 PM. Positive ID before 4:00 AM. That's less than eight hours. Sometimes, we're led by various television programs and movies to believe that the process is much quicker than that.

In actuality, given the steps involved, the eight hour turn-around is magical. Because...



Law enforcement, NIST making fingerprint files easier to search (GCN)
Not all AFIS are alike, however. State and local agencies often maintain their own databases, and although there can be some interoperability in a vertical hierarchy of local, state and federal databases, there is very little interoperability horizontally between neighboring jurisdictions. To search different databases, examiners must mark distinctive features for fingerprints manually for different systems, using different coding, notation methods and data definitions.


See also: Law enforcement interoperability, though little discussed, is a big deal


It looks like quite a lot of progress is being made on the interoperability challenges we've discussed from time-to-time.

U can't touch this...

ASIA/PACIFIC:
The touch-less sensing market is expected to reach $1.89 billion by the end of 2018 at a CAGR of 29.30%
(Markets and Markets)

From the summary...
The increasing security concerns in the major countries of the region have pushed for the need of accurate and reliable biometric systems. The e-passport program has picked up pace in many countries and the Aadhaar number initiative by the Indian government have created huge demand for the touchless biometrics. The touchless sanitary market that includes products like touchless faucets, touchless soap dispensers, touchless hand dryers and so on, will witness growth in their shipments as the governments increase their focus on hygiene in the region.

The demand for touchless biometrics is on the rise owing to the accuracy on the part of the system. The contact-less biometric solutions are more hygienic as compared to the touch-based biometric systems. The touch-less sensing market is expected to reach $1.89 billion by the end of 2018 at a CAGR of 29.30%. The key players in the touch-less sanitary equipment market are iTouchless (U.S.), simplehuman LLC (U.S.). The key players in touchless biometric solutions include NEC Corporation (Japan), Fujitsu Limited (Japan), TST Biometrics (Germany), Touchless Biometric Systems (Germany), and IrisGuard (Switzerland). Majority of the global players have strong presence in the APAC market.

The huge demand for Smartphones and Tablets is a definite driver for the gesture recognition market in the APAC region. This is evident with the number of product launched, from the OEMs in the last two years. A number of OEMs, who have their footprint globally and in local markets, have launched products ranging from smartphones to smart TVs. The figure below shows the trend of the APAC gesture recognition and touchless sensing market from 2012 till 2018.
...
Gesture recognition is still in the emerging phase but has proved to be the next generation technology that has the potential to revolutionize the way humans interact with machines. The technology is currently being integrated majorly into consumer electronics. This would help to push the technology towards maturity and in turn the decrease in price. Slowly, automotive application and healthcare would emerge as potential applications for the gesture recognition market in the near future.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

IMF sees substantial savings from UID

Direct cash through Aadhaar to save 0.5% of GDP for India: IMF (New Indian Express)
Integration of direct cash transfer with Aadhaar will take time but the scheme will help Indian government save 0.5 per cent of the GDP, International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday.

"... the total savings could be substantial: if the combination of direct cash transfer and Aadhaar eliminates the estimated 15 per cent leakage cited above for the programmes being integrated, savings could total 0.5 per cent of GDP in addition to the gains from the better targeting of spending on the poor," the IMF said in a report.
That may be an undersetimate.

Poll: Public not too worried about surveillance and face recognition

Americans mostly in favor of facial recognition at public events: poll (Biometrics Update)
From the report, 59% oppose email and cell phone surveillance (up 13% from 2006), but 79% are in favor of using facial recognition at various locations and public events and 81% support expanded camera surveillance on streets and in public places.
The public probably senses that there are a lot of ways to deploy facial recognition that are much less invasive of privacy than snooping on emails and hacking cell phones.

Calling the roll with face rec

It doesn't take a Ph.D.  to read the same list of people's names over and over again. So why do we make them do it?

Facial-recognition use grows as accuracy rises, cost declines (China Daily)
Wei Xiaoyong, an associate professor at Sichuan University, used to worry about taking roll call for his class of 100 students.

"It is time-consuming. But students who attend classes every day say it is unfair if I do not do it."

Wei eventually found the solution - a face recognition system.

With the system, all he has to do is to use an ordinary pocket camera to take a picture of the class. Wei then uploads the picture and the computer will automatically find out who showed up for class.

Wei has not noted a single absence since he started using the system.

Know your fingerprint terminology

Handy-dandy fingerprint terminology reference...
The definitions are longer and more detailed at the link.

What Is a Patent Fingerprint? (AZCentral)
If you're in the business of crime scene investigation or forensic lab analysis, you have to know your fingerprint terminology. Fingerprints are complex natural patterns, and fingerprint professionals use a sophisticated jargon to describe their appearance.
Patent Fingerprint - visible image of a person's fingertip left on a surface as a result of residue on the finger.

Plastic Fingerprint - impression left in a pliable substance, such as clay, wax or wet paint.

Latent Fingerprint - print left on a surface as the result of natural oils on the skin

Exemplar Fingerprint - deliberate print specifically made as part of a record

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

US & EU to help Nigeria with fingerprint biometrics in counter-terrorism effort

Insecurity: US, EU renew support for Nigeria (The Nation)
“We have figure prints of possible over 10 million travellers at the same time in a system. We are expanding in Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso and we are doing a major upgrade in Ghana. We are possessing about 10 thousand finger prints per week in West Africa.”

When reporters sought to know what the US stood to gain in the partnership, Moro responded that the assistance was at no cost to the country but an extension of a hand of fellowship from a caring ally.

Other members of the delegation are: Mr. Dwight Brown, Miss Theresa Keens, Mr. David Svendsen, Mary Johnson, Thaddaeus Hoyt and Diana Kohn, who are programmes personnel at the US Embassy.

The European Union also renewed its continued support to the Federal Government “until terrorism is defeated”. Ambassador and Head of Delegation of the EU to Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Dr David MacRae, dropped the hint at a media luncheon hosted by the commission in Abuja.
This news article from yesterday provides important context.

Nigeria: Boko Haram Threat Chokes Trade With Cameroon (All Africa)
Cameroon has stepped up security over the Boko Haram (BH) threat.

In November 2011, Nigeria shut its border with Cameroon, prompting Yaoundé to bolster security in the largely Muslim Far North Region, close dozens of Koranic schools and hand over suspected BH members to Nigeria, which reopened the border in 2012.

Despite the intensified security, suspected BH militants on 19 February abducted seven French tourists, including four children, from a national park in the Far North Region, freeing them two months later.

Cross-border trade sustains the local economy in the Far North Region which sells onions, rice, maize, livestock and other agricultural goods to Nigeria, and imports sugar, cement, textile and electronics.

"Tight border security and checks are making business impossible for some of us. This was worsened by the kidnapping of [the French] tourists. Today all the goods must be checked before entry, and taxes are so high," said Doudou Yaouba, a trader in Maroua, the regional capital.
This last, detailed, article illuminates major concerns within ECOWAS and among other interested parties. Biometrics can be a leap-frogging technology for providing domestic services, as in India's UID project. They can also be a leap-frogging technology for bringing less rigorous international security protocols into a standard operating environment where highly sophisticated capabilities can be brought to bear.