UAE biometric database will allow residents not to carry ID

UAE biometric database will allow residents not to carry ID — Gulf Business — “The UAE plans to utilise third generation biometric data with the goal of allowing residents not to carry their ID card within the next five years… By 2018, the authority is also aiming to allow 80% people to use government services via their mobile by operating the device’s Near Field Communication chip to read their Emirates ID.”



NEC earbuds showcase hands-free biometric verification

NEC earbuds showcase hands-free biometric verification — New Atlas — “The new prototype earbuds are an application of NEC’s “hearable device user authentication technology”… NEC says the technology can identify the user within one second and with “greater than 99% accuracy”. Unlike biometrics based on the iris recognition or fingerprints, you don’t need to hold or look at your phone to use it.”


New cloud framework for mobile biometrics

New cloud framework for mobile biometrics — The Stack — “Researchers from the IEEE have proposed a high-performance cluster cloud framework to help manage the mountains of data associated with mobile biometric authentication… the team found that using a cloud-based biometric authentication framework, or BAMCloud, helped to achieve network speed performance of over eight times more than alternate methods.”


Hackers defeat Samsung Galaxy S8 iris scanner

Hackers defeat Samsung Galaxy S8 iris scanner — Security Week — “Hackers of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) in Germany have managed to defeat the iris recognition system on Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S8 smartphones… While an individual’s iris is unique, researchers from CCC showed that Samsung’s iris scanner can be defeated by showing it a picture of the victim’s eye.”



What's New in Payments

Samsung Pay goes live in Taiwan with seven banks

Samsung Pay has been launched across Taiwan with support from Visa and Mastercard along with seven major banks including Citibank, Cathay United Bank, E.Sun Commercial Bank, Taishin International Bank, Fubon Bank, Union Bank of Taiwan and Standard Chartered. The service supports iris scan authentication for those with Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ devices. More


Govt eyes private sector access to national facial recognition service

Govt eyes private sector access to national facial recognition service — Computerworld Australia — “Within the Attorney-General’s Department there’s a view that private sector access to the government’s national facial recognition system would represent a ‘natural progression’ of its development. Andrew Rice, AGD assistant secretary, Cyber and Identity Security Branch, today said that there would be proof of concept opportunities for private sector access to the system in FY17-18.”


What's New in Payments

Google to let users make in-app and online payments with any stored card and add P2P payments to digital assistant

Google Assistant

Google has unveiled a new payment API that will allow customers to make payments through third party mobile apps, websites and the company’s voice-based Google Assistant using “any credit or debit card stored in their Google account” from across a range of services including Android Pay, Google Play and Google Chrome. The API will also let customers use a stored card to complete transactions via a new peer-to-peer (P2P) payments feature that will be added to the digital assistant. More




What's New in Payments

Samsung Pay goes live in the UK with iris scan authentication and faster transit payments

Samsung Pay in the UK

Samsung Pay is now available in the UK for customers of three financial institutions — MBNA, Nationwide and Santander — with “more on the way”. The service supports iris scan authentication as well as PIN and fingerprint authentication for Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ owners and offers a ‘transport card’ option designed to speed up transactions on busy Transport for London (TfL) services. More



One in four banks find it difficult to verify the identity of online banking customers

One in four banks find it difficult to verify the identity of online banking customers — Kaspersky Lab — “According to the research, in 2016, 30% of banks have had security incidents affecting banking services delivered via the internet — with phishing against customers, and using customer credentials for fraudulent activities, as the top contributing factor leading to the attacks.”



European consortium to develop pan-industry online identity platform

Master key ID platform

A group of German and other European companies including banks, vehicle manufacturers and technology providers have signed a “corresponding declaration of intent” to establish a joint, pan-industry platform that will let their customers use a “so-called master key” for registration and identification when accessing online services across a range of sectors including government, aviation and retail. More