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11 Body Parts Defense Researchers Will Use to Track You
Cell phones that can identify you by how you walk. Fingerprint scanners that work from 25 feet away. Radars that pick up your heartbeat from behind concrete walls. Algorithms that can tell identical twins apart. Eyebrows and earlobes that give you away. A new generation of technologies is emerging that can identify you by your physiology. And unlike the old crop of biometric systems, you don’t need to be right up close to the scanner in order to be identified. If they work as advertised, they may be able to identify you without you ever knowing you’ve been spotted.
Biometrics had a boom after 9/11. Gobs of government money poured into face and iris recognition systems; the Pentagon alone spent nearly $3 billion in five years, and the Defense Department was only one of many federal agencies funneling cash in the technologies. Civil libertarians feared the Read more…
UK nightclub uses biometrics to control entry
The Underground, a nightclub in Dundee, Scotland, recently installed biometric fingerprint scanners for first time visitors to prove they are of age to enter. For subsequent visits, customers of the nightclub are identified by scanning their fingerprint.
The club is run by G1 Group PLC, who introduced the Scannet ID Scan system after a successful trial period in its Glasgow club. Scannet ID Scan is used to verify that identification presented is real.
Fingerprints gathered, together with photo-based profiles, are stored in computers in the club. Having this technology makes it easier for the management to identify troublemakers, and scan foreign passports and driving licenses before allow entry to the club.
A spokeswoman from G1 Group said : “The system recognizes most international passports and driving licenses, meaning we can Read more…
e-Passports to add more biometrics by 2014
IMS Research finds a rapid migration from paper or machine readable passports to smart card-based passports (complying with the ICAO standard for e-Passports) started in 2007, leading to nearly half of all passports now in use being e-Passports.
Within five years 90 per cent of passport holders will be using e-passports that integrate a smart card IC chip, according to IMS Research in its report titled, “Electronic Government and Health Care ID Cards – World – 2011.”
“This trend is set to Read more…
Biometric access could control South Africa schools
Liam Terblanche, CIO at AccsysMany schools in South Africa may have considered biometric access control as a means of combating truancy and ensuring learner safety and security.
In the UK, an estimated 30% of all schools use biometric access control. Although concerns have been raised over privacy and the collection of fingerprints into national data sets, the Data Protection Act (1998) of that country allows schools to record fingerprint biometrics without the consent of the parents.
In South Africa, however, the almost to be promulgated Protection of Personal Information (POPI) bill prevents the collection of personal information without the written consent of the individual, or that of a legal guardian in the case of minors. (See section 25 – Prohibition on processing of special personal information).
This would imply that, even if a school’s governing body agrees to the implementation of biometric access control at a school, the individual learners would still be able to Read more…
Doctor convicted of surgery to alter immigrant fingerprints
By Ros Krasny
BOSTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – A doctor from the Dominican Republic was convicted and sentenced in Boston on Thursday of offering to surgically alter the fingerprints of illegal aliens, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
The case is one of a number of attempts in recent years to subvert the federal government’s new biometric border security program, known as the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System.
Jose Elias Zaiter-Pou, 62, pleaded guilty of conspiring to conceal illegal aliens from detection by law enforcement authorities, by surgically altering their fingerprints in exchange for payment.
He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, followed by deportation and three years of supervised release.
Authorities said Zaiter-Pou met at a hotel in Woburn, Massachusetts, with a Read more…
Germany deploys contactless national ID
Germany began issuing the new contactless national ID to citizens in November. The program is one of the first contactless-only electronic ID programs. It also employs a unique privacy scheme to protect cardholders.
National ID cards aren’t new in the European Union and many countries use smart card technology to power the credentials. But the contactless German ID is a bit of a departure from what other countries have done and thus necessitated a slightly different take on existing contactless smart cards.
The country expects to issue 60 million cards over the next 10 years to replace existing paper documents, says Rudy Stroh, executive vice president of the ID business and country manager for Germany at NXP Semiconductors. NXP is providing the chip–its 128-kilobyte SmartMX secure contactless microcontroller–for the German e-ID.
“The contactless technology used in the e-ID enables strong privacy protection,” Stroh says.
The first difference between the German ID card and other contactless smart cards is that is can only be read from four centimeters, whereas most other cards can be read from Read more…
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