The deadline for submitting your abstract for presenting at the 2026 High Security Printing™ (HSP) EMEA conference, taking place in Rabat, Morocco from 9-11 February 2026, is fast approaching. High Security Printing™ EMEA is the leading forum for banknotes, passports, ID cards and secure documents across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Published for the Optical & Digital Document Security™ (ODDS) community, this peer-reviewed volume is a record of the 2025 conference held in Warsaw, Poland, from 16-17 September. The conference was organised by Reconnaissance International with guidance from the ODDS Technical Committee. The proceedings offer a concise, authoritative snapshot of the field, with contributions from industry, academia and government.

The debate around biometric authentication continues to evolve, driven not only by technical innovation and operational efficiency, but increasingly by questions of privacy, data stewardship and consumer trust. A recent $1.4 billion settlement between Google and the state of Texas has once again spotlighted the fragility of public confidence in biometric systems – and how quickly that confidence can be eroded when privacy safeguards fail.

The 2025 Thales Digital Trust Index reveals a noticeable decline in global consumer trust across digital services. The study, encompassing over 14,000 consumers across 14 countries, indicates that no sector achieved a trust rating greater than 50%, underscoring widespread scepticism towards personal data handling practices in the digital domain.

Reconnaissance International is pleased to announce the release of its new publication – ‘Smartphones for Authentication’ – the only publication of its kind.

The city of New Delhi witnessed a pivotal conference attracting international experts and industry leaders to delve into the transformative potential of Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs) in the realm of identity.

Definitive proof that fingerprints are a unique biometric at birth has been published by a team of academic researchers in the journal Cell. But while the paper seems to confirm that they are unique – are fingerprints immutable and reliable?

An item in the BBC News technology section reports that laws governing biometric technologies are urgently needed, according to an independent legal review led by Matthew Ryder QC.

For many years, the ID and secure document industry has understood the potential that universal citizen identity would have for increasing worldwide economic development. And now, a WEF think-tank has produced a 46-page report illustrating the potential benefit of a worldwide unifying digital ID data management policy.

The Hype Cycle™ is a well-established graphical tool used to represent the trigger, adoption, maturity and application of a specific technology and so characterise the complete life cycle of that technology’s adoption.