India: UIDAI & NPR still at it

This is a "dog bites man" story but it has been a while since we dropped in on the India ID effort...

Govt likely to allow UIDAI to start enrolment in NPR states (CNBC India)

Government is likely to allow on Thursday UIDAI, which issues unique identification numbers to residents, to start enrolments in areas other than 18 states and union territories allocated to it for the purpose.

According to an official source, the Cabinet Committee on Unique identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will discuss a proposal of the Planning Commission to allow UIDAI to start enrolments in states and union territories which were not part of its mandated operations.

UIDAI proposal not taken up by Cabinet due to paucity of time (Business Standard)

A Cabinet Committee could not discuss today the proposal to allow UIDAI to start enrolments in areas other than 18 states and union territories allocated to it, due to paucity of time.

According to an official source, the Cabinet Committee on Unique identification Authority of India (UIDAI) meeting scheduled for today to discuss the proposal was not held as the meeting of the Cabinet took time to decide on LPG cylinder issue and other matters.

Both the committees are headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

For some background on the UIDAI-NPR bad blood, see ID Rivalry Reignites in India.

Target hack investigation looks at vendor ID credentials

Target: Cybercrooks used stolen vendor ID to hack into system (Star Tribune)

Target Corp. said Wednesday that the huge data breach it suffered late last year happened after an intruder stole a vendor’s credentials and used them to gain access to the company’s computer system.

A Target spokeswoman wouldn’t identify the vendor or type of credentials because the retailer is in the midst of forensic and criminal investigations into the malware attack, where cybercrooks hijacked debit and credit card information from up to 110 million people.

I guess it's a start

"password" is no longer the most popular password on the internet.

  The 25 most common passwords of 2013 (CBS News)

According to password management company SplashData, the top three passwords of the year are “123456,” “password” and “12345678.” The top three passwords haven't changed, but "123456" and "password" swapped places from last year. The company's list of the "25 worst passwords of the year" was compiled using data that hackers have posted online, which are said to be stolen passwords.

Bold statement

Apple’s purchase of AuthenTec was the largest acquisition in its history. (Wired)

Biometrics for government accoutability

Fingerprinting to end honeymoon for govt staff (Arab News)

Government employees may soon have to mark their attendance through biometrics, which may rob them of the luxury of coming late or even bunking work.

The proposal to have biometric attendance marking in all public departments was mooted by several monitoring agencies including the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha). The move is aimed at ensuring strict and timely attendance of government employees in various sectors.

The findBIOMETRICS 2013 Year in Review is out

Biometrics Makes Headlines – The findBIOMETRICS 2013 Year in Review (findBIOMETRICS)

From Peter O’Neill's introduction:

What a year for the Biometrics and Identification Industry! The past year in biometrics was explosive. Biometrics has become real. From the rapid growth of the FIDO Alliance to the Consumer Electronics Show that hailed in 2014, biometrics are being talked about everywhere! Industry verticals like Border Control, Financial, Healthcare, Law Enforcement, National ID, etc. are all moving aggressively ahead into 2014. Our industry made headlines in 2013 and will continue to do so in 2014, so …be prepared…be innovative …be ready to capitalize on a rapidly growing marketplace.

We received responses from Canada, Spain, Russia, China, Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, Hong Kong, Sweden, Germany, UK, France, Korea, The Netherlands, Taiwan, Lithuania, Singapore, Japan, Italy, Malaysia and the USA.

Here's a link straight to the 33-page PDF report.

Research points to growth in government biometrics market and future M&A

Govt biometrics market to hit US$6.9bn (Security Document World)

SDI says: “Government identity and border control initiatives, increasing concerns about data security, and an increase in rebel groups and terrorism are expected to boost the demand for biometric identity and security systems over the coming years. As this sector gains prominence, it is expected that large competitors will try to generate competence by acquiring medium and small sized niche firms which will fill the gaps in their products or services portfolio.”

New book on how biometrics age

Book Review: Age Factors in Biometric Processing (M2SYS Blog)

Mr. Fairhurst assembles his book into four primary sections:

1.) An introduction to the aging process and an overview of biometric systems – setting the stage for discussion on how aging can effect individual biometric modalities
2.) A study of how aging effects specific biometric modalities including physiological and behavioral modalities
3.) A closer look at the topic of aging from the perspective of an industrial viewpoint, a forensics perspective, and the impact of aging on one of the more popular biometric modalities – facial recognition
4.) A look to the future and based on the conclusions of this book, what type and the scope of research that may be needed in the future

Samsung to introduce mobile fingerprint tech

Samsung bets on fingerprint tech for Galaxy S5 (The Korea Herald)

After California-based Apple spearheaded fingerprint sensors last year, Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest smartphone maker, is poised to feature the sensors in its upcoming smartphone, the Galaxy S5.

Iris will have to wait.

New Canadian biometrics requirement for certain visa types begins next Wednesday

Canada introduces new biometric visa requirements (Dhaka Tribune)

When a traveller arrives in Canada at a port of entry, a Canadian border services officer will use all available sources of information to confirm that person’s identity.

This new requirement will not only help protect the safety and security of Canadians while helping facilitate legitimate travel, it will also protect prospective visitors by making it more difficult for others to forge, steal or use an applicant’s identity to gain access to Canada, it said.

Innovations in Biometrics for Consumer Electronics

Frost & Sullivan: Integration of Biometrics in Consumer Electronics a Fast-Emerging Trend (Yahoo)

[...]fingerprint recognition will remain the leading biometric technology used in consumer electronics due to its convenience, cost-efficiency and quick ROI. Iris recognition and multimodal biometrics will rapidly grow in the next three years due to their accuracy, although the high cost and large size of iris recognition systems may hinder widespread uptake. Voice and face recognition technologies likewise should find higher usage depending on the security requirement of the application.

More good insight at the link.

Droid users must wait for fingerprint unlock option

Will Samsung’s Galaxy S5 Come with TouchID Rival for Easy Log-In? (GottaBeMobile)

Samsung is reportedly chasing Apple’s iPhone 5s’ TouchID biometric authentication sensor with its own version, which is said to debut in 2014.

Patrick Grother, NIST iris project leader among 15 innovative US government employees

Patrick Grother is a pioneer in making iris scans--not long ago, the stuff of science fiction--a viable biometric usable on smart card credentials today (FierceGovernmentIT)

This is what a legacy system looks like

Moral turpitude, severe violations of the religious freedom of others, intent to become a prostitute, not if you want a USA visa, you don't.

Why are US visa questions so weird? (Financial Times - Registration Required to read the linked article)

The reason US visa forms seem such an odd accretion of questions is that is what they are. They have been added to over the decades to confront whatever danger the US was dealing with at the time.
...
Are the visa forms an effective way of keeping undesirables out of the US? “If we’re interested in keeping people who mean to do us harm out, it’s not very effective,” Mr Chishti says. Biometric screening, databases and finger printing are far more useful, he says.

Mobile device manufacturers begin taking security more seriously

A little over two years ago, when Motorola yanked the fingerprint sensor from its Atrix line, we noted that there is a tension between the market signals from the "make 'em cheaper" vs the "make 'em more secure" crowd.

It appears that the rise of mobile commerce since then is forcing manufacturers to give more weight to security now than they did then.

Security continues to be a major issue for mobile commerce (Mobile Commerce Press)

Mobile identity is becoming more important to businesses, especially as more consumers around the world begin to rely on smartphones, tablets, and other devices in their daily lives. Market research firm ResearchMOZ has released a new report concerning the growing importance of mobile identity and how businesses are beginning to invest more heavily in biometrics and other such technologies. The report cites the growth of mobile interactions and mobile commerce as the influence behind higher investments in mobile identity.

...and there's this.

ARM is developing a 128-bit mobile chip for use in Samsung hardware (tech2)

If 64-bits just aren't enough for you, the ARM official has also revealed that it is aiming for 128-bit mobile chips that will be developed over the next couple of years. As ridiculous as it may sound, demand for the chip will supposedly be driven by the drastic performance upgrades needed for biometric sensors and face recognition.

128 seems a bit big. Facial recognition recognition systems in government applications with very large databases work well on 32- and 64-bit systems. Those who may disagree will likely base their disagreement on factors other than number of bits of data the chip can handle at one time.

Nevertheless, it's good to see hardware manufacturers providing more options to security-conscious mobile device user.

Report: Biometrics market to more than triple in size over next 6 years

Global biometrics market $5.2 billion in 2013, is expected to reach $16.7 billion by 2019 (Market Research Reports)

A rise in government projects has been seen as terrorists become an increasing threat. This has been accompanied by increasing data security concerns. There is a need for advanced security devices. Security systems implementations drive the market for biometric systems. Biometric data protection is being used to replace photographs, passwords and PIN codes.

So this is what Microsoft has been up to...

SILICON REPUBLIC:  Xbox One dashboard video highlights biometric abilities of new console (with video)  "The Kinect camera comes with biometric capabilities that recognise the voice of each individual in the household, as well as their body shape because it reads their skeletal frame."

The linked article comes at the technology on display from an Xbox One angle but I think it's bigger than that. Is Microsoft just highlighting it's vision for the Windows 8 world? Is it signalling that the future of Microsoft is going to be more bound up with hardware like the Xbox, Surface and Kinect? Biometrics in the OS? Taking it's huge market share and moving to a business model that looks more like Apple's?

More questions than answers, I know. But if you have 12 minutes, give it a watch and see if the same isn't true for you.

To touch on the biometrics a bit, it looks like the capability billed as voice recognition is indeed true voice recognition and speech recognition rather than speech recognition alone. A post dealing with the distinction is here. Each of the two people in the video tell the system to "show my stuff" and the software shows different sets of "stuff" even though prompted in identical terms by the different users.

I'm not exactly sure what the presenters mean when they mention that the system distinguishes among individuals by skeletal structure, but in the Skype demonstration the technology does seem to recognize a dog as something worth paying attention.

Tesco adopting demographic detection marketing technology

FAST COMPANY - British supermarket chain Tesco is installing a face-scanning technology in all of its 450 gas stations. The technology uses cameras to identify the age and sex of store customers to target ads at customers who are waiting in line to pay.

Governor of Bayelsa, Nigeria to State employees: No biometrics; no paycheck.

Workers not captured by biometric will forfeit salaries –Dickson (National Mirror)

Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, yesterday warned that civil and public servants not captured in the ongoing verification and biometric exercise would forfeit their salaries from January next year.

“On schedule, within budget and within scope.”

Next Generation Identification: A closer look at the FBI’s billion-dollar biometric program (Biometric Update)

Representing a $1.2 billion investment by the U.S. federal government, the FBI’s massive Next Generation Identification (NGI) program is a ten-year lifecycle project that hinges on biometric identification technologies and has seen privacy advocates butt heads with law enforcement since its inception.

Split into six “increments,” Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract in 2008 to design, build and implement the program on behalf of the FBI, which ultimately aims to enhance the abilities of the agency’s aging IAFIS from the mid-nineties.

More at the link.