Biometrics - News and views on biometric technology.

The latest Security Index report from Unisys contains encouraging figures for organisations considering implementing biometric authentication systems.

13,000 people in 13 countries were surveyed in the poll, which found 57% of UK adults are worried about identity theft, with 63% concerned about credit and debit card fraud.

Three quarters of UK respondents would be willing to use fingerprint authentication to verify identity with banks and government agencies.  This makes Brits more open to biometric technology than any other European country.  56% would be willing to participate in hand vein biometric scanning.

“It is necessary to put in place robust safeguards at the technology level, but also to complement these through training in good practice,” said Jim Norton, senior policy adviser for e-business and e-government at the Institute of Directors.

“Recent high profile stories of data loss should strengthen the call for a balanced approach using the appropriate authentication technology, but also focusing on the right processes and behaviours.”

The following is a press release from market research firm ABI Research concerning the percolation of biometric technology into the consumer markets.

Long the domain of government and law enforcement agencies, biometric systems are increasingly moving into the market for personal data management and security. Laptops, mobile phones, storage drives and other personal devices will increasingly include biometric options to provide an additional layer of access security.

“Biometrics players increasingly have to support both public and private sector demand. It will be those that leverage the key biometric standards initially developed for the public sector but with scope for private sector deployments that will reap the benefits,” says ABI Research principal analyst Jonathan Collins.

Biometrics move into everyday life will help familiarize a broad population with the concept of using biometric measurements and systems to protect their own data. At the same time biometrics systems will become more and more commonplace in workplaces to protect physical and logical access to key resources.

The combined growth in both government, law enforcement and private sectors for biometrics will drive spending on biometrics systems over the next five years up to $7.3 billion by 2013, up from around $3 billion in 2008.

Although biometrics increasingly pushes into corporate and consumer deployments, traditional government and law enforcement biometrics spending will continue to dominate investment over the next five years. However, the ability to leverage technologies developed for the public sector in private sector and personal deployments will be increasingly important.

“In addition,” notes Collins, “The wide variety of biometrics technologies available including face, fingerprint, iris, hand and speech recognition systems, as well as their differing characteristics, has created opportunities for vendors and systems integrators to help customers select the correct biometric measurement or combination of measurements for any application.

Increasingly the test for biometrics players will be to understand and supply both markets with a range of suitable, secure and trusted products and systems.

There’s a great review of KwikSet’s SmartScan biometric door lock at the Chicago Tribune this week.  Here are some of the cool points:

• Self-burglary is really tough these days, so make sure you never get locked out of your house again!
• The SmartScan device looks deep into the innards of your finger
• Prevents fraud
• Allows the technology to work when your finger is dirty, wet, or cut
• Won’t work on a dismembered finger
• Set up as many as 50 fingerprint profiles
• Create an access schedule for each fingerprint profile
• If your children aren’t home by curfew, they will be automatically locked out
• Along the same lines, prevent your kids from getting into the house during school hours - stop them skipping classes!
• Ensure your cleaner, maid, carer etc. gets access to your home only at specified times
  
  

Check out this review of the product on Amazon - scroll down the page for an in-depth commentary on the product from one user.

HSBC will install ten new ‘light immune’ facial recognition units at their two new UK data centres by next summer, as reported by TheEngineer.co.uk today.

HSBC will be working with Surrey-based identity management specialist OmniPerception, who have deployed their products in police forces across the UK amongst other clients.
David McIntosh, chief executive of OmniPerception, said: ‘Helping to prevent sensitive data falling into the wrong hands is clearly an important role for modern facial biometric technology.

‘By being the first to adopt facial-recognition technology for this purpose, HSBC is blazing a trail that will benefit both the banking sector and society as a whole.’

A really great video showed up on the BBC website this week.  They cover the use of gait biometrics for crime busting, the use of keystroke recognition to prevent unauthorised logging on, and a great looking device from Siemens that scans a bar code on your PC screen, then requests a finger swipe which generates a password for access.  Talk about secure!

Click here to watch the video.