• DHS proposes biometric airport and seaport exit procedures

    Moving to implement one more recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, DHS announces that by 30 June 2009 all visitors leaving the United States will have their biometric details taken and recorded

  • California passes smart-gun law

    Several companies are now working on embedding palm biometrics security mechanism in guns: The gun grip will store the image of the owner’s palm, and the gun will unlock only if the image of the palm holding the gun matches the stored image; California wants this mechanism in all guns sold in the state

  • UK Biometrics offers new finger print reader

    Newcastle-based biometric company introduces its Evolution product; company says Evolution can scan one million records per second

  • Biometric empire building: L-1 Identity Solutions acquires Bioscrypt

    Robert LaPenta’s L-1 has been steadily, methodically pursuing an acquisition campaign which would make the company an identification authentication superpower; latest acquisitions: Bioscrypt and the ID systems business of Digimarc

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  • IrisGuard awarded Jordanian bank contract

    Cairo Amman Bank, the fastest growing retail bank in Jordan, will deploy U.K. company’s iris recognition technology in its seventy branches in the Middle East

  • Scholar: More biometrics means more freedom

    Irish scholar researching the history of biometrics and its current uses says that contrary to fears about invasion of privacy, the use of biometrics will lead to enhanced freedom (except for those who try to assume false identities)

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  • Behavioral observation program questioned

    TSDA has been training security officers in behavioral observation, then placed them in major U.S. airports to observe passengers and note suspicious behavior; in the past four years, 104,000 passengers were pulled out of line to answer to more serious security measures, but fewer than 700 were arrested – all on criminal, rather than terror, charges; critics are not sure the $45 million annual tab is justified

  • Sagem Sécurité to coordinate TURBINE project

    TURBINE aims to develop advanced digital identity solutions, combining automatic fingerprint recognition and innovative cryptographic techniques; research efforts will focus on burying secret information inside a description of fingerprints

  • Siemens to offer fingerprint Internet ID

    To cut down on hacking of bank accounts, Siemens will introduce an Internet ID which scans the user’s fingerprints before allowing him or her access to the bank account

  • Security concerns over U.S. decision to outsource e-passport production

    The U.S. Government Printing Office’s (GPO) decision to outsource the production of the new e-passports to companies in Europe and Thailand makes legislators, security experts worry; Thailand is an unstable country with a tradition of corruption and rising Islamic terrorism problem; the Dutch company which operates the Thai e-passport production facilities filed court papers in October 2007 charging that China had stolen the company’s patented technology for e-passport chips

  • JFK now requires 10 fingerprints from visitors

    New York’s JFK joins a list of other U.S. airports now requiring non-U.S. citizens to submit ten fingerprints; on a typical day, JFK sees almost 14,400 international visitors complete US‑VISIT biometric procedures

  • New U.K. approach to national ID card scheme

    Technology is just one issue in the U.K. government’s overhaul of controversial identity plan

  • Pay By Touch discontinues biometrics services

    Pay By Touch came to market with much fanfare, offering to process biometric transactions for merchants; things did not work as planned, and company discontinues service

  • Fingerprint market to reach $2.1 billion by 2013

    The fingerprinting/biometrics segment will reach $940 million in 2008 and $2.1 billion by 2013; next five years will be a boon to forensic technologies

  • Sequiam files for Chapter 11

    Orlando biometrics company claims its lead investor reneged on as much as $3 million of the firm’s $11 million loan commitment; late last week this investor announced plans to become the lead financier for Sequiam’s rival