Passengers travelling on train services operated by JR West between two railway stations in the Japanese city of Osaka will soon be able to test a contactless biometric ticketing system that enables them to pay for their fares with their face... More
Authentication
Maryland tests digital ID cards and driving licences for Android NFC smartphone users
Android users in Maryland are the first in the US to be able to create and store digital versions of their state identity card and driving licence in Google Wallet on their NFC smartphone and use it to verify their identity at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security checkpoints at selected airports... More
One in two Brazilians now store contactless credentials on their smartphone
More than half of the Brazilian population are now storing and using a digital version of their voter ID card (54%) or driving licence (51%) on their smartphone, while just over four in ten have a digital vaccination card (43%) and one in four have uploaded the recently launched digital Carta de Identidade Nacional national ID card (25%), according to a survey... More
NFC tag management platform ixkio adds support for NFT authentication to create digital twins
EXHIBITOR NEWS: Tag management platform ixkio has added a new feature that enables users to easily verify the authenticity of both a digital non-fungible token (NFT) and the physical NFC tag linked to it in a single interaction... More
Las Vegas casino adds remote identity verification, biometric authentication and digital wallet payment for contactless gaming
Gamblers visiting Resorts World Las Vegas can now register, verify their identity, join a loyalty program and upload funds to a dedicated digital wallet before they arrive at the resort, and will no longer have to confirm their identity with casino staff prior to purchasing gambling chips and placing contactless cashless bets at slot machines directly from their smartphone... More
UBS leverages NFC and biometrics to let Swiss residents open a bank account from their mobile phone
Residents of Switzerland can now remotely verify their identity when opening an account with Swiss bank UBS by scanning the contactless chip embedded in their biometric passport with their NFC smartphone and confirming their identity with a selfie using face recognition technology... More
Visa to pilot biometric payments and instant digital prepaid card issuance at World Cup in Qatar
Football fans attending the FIFA World Cup in Qatar will be able to authenticate payments for purchases at three coffee outlets with their face, using biometric technology being piloted by Visa and Qatar National Bank... More
Airports to get contactless biometric cards for secure two-factor access control
Airports in the USA and elsewhere around the world could soon begin testing biometric access control cards that use a built-in fingerprint sensor to verify the identity of employees or other authorised cardholders at points of entry to secure areas... More
Polish retail chain trials biometric payments
Customers purchasing laptops, tablets, smartphones and accessories from a branch of Polish retail chain Komputronik in the city of Wroclaw can now pay for their purchases using a biometric payments system that uses a combination of iris and face recognition technology... More
WeChat Pay lets Chinese consumers make payments with their palm
WeChat Pay users in China can now opt to authenticate payments with their palm at merchants that support the payment service’s new biometric WeChat Palm Payment solution... More
NFC tag management platform ixkio opens NFCW Expo showcase
EXHIBITOR NEWS: NFC tag veterans Seritag have launched ixkio, an NFC tag management platform designed for easy, flexible and scalable control of both standard and authentication NFC tags... More
Medicom combats counterfeit figurines with NFC tags
Japanese collectible toy maker Medicom Toy has added NFC authentication tags to three of its Be@rbrick figurines in a bid to combat numerous fake versions of the bear-shaped toys that have appeared on the market... More
Bank Pocztowy launches first biometric debit card in Poland
Customers of Poland’s Bank Pocztowy are among the first in the country to be able to apply for a biometric debit card that allows them to authenticate contactless payments using their fingerprint... More
Greece rolls out digital ID cards and driving licences
Greek citizens can now create, store and present digital versions of their national identity card and driving licence using a digital identity wallet on their smartphone... More
Tequila brand extends use of NFC tags for product authentication and customer engagement
US-based tequila brand Otaca is to add NFC tags that enable purchasers to authenticate their purchase, access information about the brand and place further orders by tapping the tag in the bottle cap with their Apple or Android NFC device to more than 50,000 bottles of its Reposado tequila... More
Apple gets patent for ‘biometric button assembly’ to bring Touch ID to Apple Watch
The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted Apple a patent for an “electronic device having sealed button biometric sensing system” that would enable users to unlock a device, authorise transactions and access apps by verifying their identity with their fingerprint on a wearable device such as an Apple Watch... More
European Parliament passes law that requires Apple to open up its NFC chip
The European Parliament has adopted the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that will obligate Apple, Google and other “gatekeeper” technology companies to allow app developers and third-party service providers access to device functionalities “such as near-field communication technology, secure elements and processors, authentication mechanisms and the software used to operate those technologies”... More
Ethiopian government adds health records to contactless cards
Residents of Ethiopia will be among the first in Africa to be able to acquire a dedicated contactless health card that stores their digitised medical data — including their Covid-19 vaccination records — and enables them to make that data available to healthcare professionals without needing an internet connection to access online databases... More
Researchers develop edible tags for authenticating whisky and pharmaceuticals
Researchers at Purdue University in Indiana in the USA and the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences in South Korea have developed edible tags containing a 2D barcode that can be placed in bottles of whisky or pharmaceuticals, enabling consumers to authenticate a product by scanning the code with their smartphone... More
Biometric remote mobile payments to be worth US$1.2tn globally by 2027
Total transaction values for remote mobile payments authorised using biometric authentication technologies such as face or fingerprint recognition worldwide will reach US$1.2tn by 2027 compared with US$332bn in 2022, according to a forecast by Juniper Research... More