One of the main themes of the week’s biometrics news is fingerprints, with Integrated Biometrics adding touchless technology, a hint at Touch ID possibly appearing on iPhone power buttons and an Idemia survey showing perhaps the strongest support yet for biometric payment cards. All the action has FPC considering its options, as investment rolls on with funding rounds or acquisitions for Yinda Infocomm (of IML), Sybrin, Signicat, Causeway, and Smile Identity, plus AnyVision’s nine-digit capper.

Top biometrics news of the week

Integrated Biometrics is adding touchless fingerprinting to its portfolio, through a partnership with Sciometrics. The partners will start by bringing the Slapshot touchless API to market, and continue working together on the smartphone software to ensure broad interoperability with traditional touch-based systems.

IB is also providing its Kojak touch four-finger scanner to partner Akiyama, which is supplying 1,500 units to Brazil’s Federal Police. The scanners are expected to be used for passport enrollment.

The biometric remote onboarding market continues humming along, with Digidentity launching a new service with NFC scanning and liveness detection, GBG partnering up to provide selfie biometrics to corporate service providers, and a customer win for AU10TIX. In a post for ID R&D, meanwhile, Alan Goode provides suggestions for companies implementing digital onboarding, and AuthenticID claims the fastest cloud identity verification system on the market.

The Improving Digital Identity Act is back before U.S. Congress. It may stand a better chance of passing with control of the three chambers aligned than in 2020, when it stalled, though the margin is slim. The Act would mandate NIST to create standards, create a task force drawn from various levels of government, and establish a grant program.

Apple has filed for a patent extending previously granted IP on Touch ID implemented to device buttons to cover the power button, fueling speculation that fingerprint sensors will be built into the power buttons of future iPhones. 9to5Mac is running a poll on where iPhone users want to see Touch ID implemented, which suggest that under the screen is the people’s choice.

The latest survey on consumer sentiment towards biometric payment cards shows strong support with 4 in 5 interested in cards, and nearly three-quarters with positive perceptions of biometrics overall. The survey shows some regional and age-based variance, but also indicates almost twice as many people are comfortable with fingerprints as any other modality.

Fingerprint Cards is considering its options, including acquisitions, spin-offs, sales and new listings, in a process it reports has been spurred by considerable interest. Little surprise, with Yinda Infocomm making The Institute of Machine Learning its latest biometrics investment, and Sybrin acquired by a pair of investment companies in a nearly-$29 million deal. Signicat acquired Electronic Identification, meanwhile, to integrate its asynchronous video identification services.

The global biometrics market for 2020 was estimated at $23.5 billion by IMARC Services.

Another strong week for biometrics investments was topped by AnyVision’s $235 million, which it plans to use to build out its edge capabilities, market reach and channel program. Construction industry tech provider Causeway, which upgraded its biometrics portfolio with the acquisition of Donseed in 2019, raised $166 million, and African selfie biometric provider Smile Identity received $7 million in a Series A round, while Daltrey has received nearly $0.5 million, with up to $8.2 million more on the way.

Paravision has recruited Benji Hutchinson to be president and COO. He told Biometric Update that in his role he expects converged enterprise access control and computer vision beyond facial recognition to take significant attention, while CEO Doug Aley tells Biometric Update the company plans to continue investing in its team and product, while also leading ethical development.

The biometric registration drive for Kenya’s national health insurance scheme drove renewed interest in Biometric Update’s coverage from mid-June, presented alongside a step forward for Nigeria’s national health insurance scheme.

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Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometrics  |  contactless  |  digital identity  |  facial recognition  |  fingerprint recognition  |  funding  |  onboarding  |  patents