Fingerprint technology has found a place in a variety of commercial use cases. We can simplify this by considering these in two broad categories – public and personal fingerprint readers.

The Cayman Islands government has gazetted two bills – the Identification Register Bill and the Cayman Islands Identification Card Bill – for the creation of a digital identity register and the issuance of ID cards to improve how residents interact with the government.

There is no doubt that the move from traditional means of identity authentication to digital identities is bringing major benefits of convenience to citizens and consumers, but public acceptance is not global, as these two surveys show.

As reported in Courthouse News Service, the US Supreme Court has agreed to examine what constitutes identity theft in a fraud after criminal defence lawyers say it is over criminalised by the federal government.

A recent technical primer on CXO Bytes, which makes a strong case for the seemingly inevitable growth of biometrics into all aspects of digital identity, marks a good point to reflect on the ongoing debate between ‘security versus convenience’.

Governments today face a myriad of challenges when determining the optimum approach for issuing a new identity document. To this end, the incorporation of advanced technologies to address the increasing counterfeit threat is critical.

The programme is set, the nominations for awards are in, the speakers are getting ready, all that’s needed now is for more participants to get online and register for The Holography Conference™ Online (THCO), which takes place 5-6 December!

Onfido, a leading global digital identity verification and authentication provider, has released ‘Motion’, a next generation biometric liveness solution to enhance its ‘Real Identity Platform’.

The APEX Board of Governors recently met at the APEX/IFSA EXPO in Long Beach, California to discuss the future of the airline passenger experience, and they had a lot to say about biometric identity.

According to the Migration and Home Affairs policy section of the European Union, the Entry/Exit System (EES) for registering travellers from third- countries each time they cross the EU external border is expected to be operational by the end of May 2023.

After a year and a half of planning with a team of designers and technology experts from various Belizean government departments, the administration has introduced a new passport.

De La Rue has announced that it has entered into a five-year extension of its contract with NPA for the sole-source supply of polycarbonate data pages for Australian passports.

The forthcoming TRUSTECH conference will focus on two main themes – identification solutions and innovative payments, which together go a long way to address the question of what digital identity future do we want – and what will we actually get?

Functional materials company META has announced that its LumaChrome colour-shifting film can now be applied as a security feature for embedded polycarbonate government identity cards, eIDs and immunity cards through a new digital demetalisation process.

South Korea plans to offer a digital identity secured by blockchain to citizens with a smartphone as it taps into the world’s most tech-savvy population to boost economic growth.

A new report from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Human Technology Institute outlines a model law for facial recognition technology to protect against harmful use of the technology, but also foster innovation for public benefit.

As a long-term partner of Nepal, IDEMIA has already provided national ID cards, an Automated Fingerprint Identification System and Machine-Readable Passports, and is now implementing an ePassport solution for the country.

Veridos, a leading provider of integrated identity solutions, announced the launch of its new VeriCHECK SelfKiosk and M600 document reader at this year’s Future Travel Experience Global.

IQ Structures has announced that it has been selected as the supplier of anti-counterfeiting protection for the ID card of the Czech Republic.

South Africa could launch a pilot of its new driving licence cards as early as 1 November 2023, and motorists in the country can expect several changes, including a new, more secure design and a possible validity extension to ten years.

Hosted by Dubai Police, the World Police Summit will provide a platform to explore the current challenges facing police forces and the latest technology advances, strategies, and innovations across the law enforcement and security spectrum.

The Federal Office of the Swiss Police has announced that citizens of Switzerland will have a new passport with a new design from the end of October.

The misuse of personal data is seen as a potential drag on the growth of the ID and secure document sector. But who do people feel they can trust more to protect their ID data – government or the private sector?

Finland has recently notified the EU of its willingness to test out digitising the country’s official documents, making it the first country in the union to experiment with the technology.

Last month, IDN reported on Landqart’s partnership with Tech5 to provide a combined solution for a certificate-based document that is durable, secure and biometrically-verifiable.

The US State Department has assembled 25,000 volunteers to try out the new online passport renewal program in advance of the service becoming available to the general public later in 2022.

Nigeria’s Ministry of Interior has pledged to sanitise the performance of professional service providers by improving the processing of visas, passports, marriages and citizenship applications.

Identity verification company Credas Technologies has been certified to perform digital identity verification for the Right to Work, Right to Rent and anti-money laundering checks that are being mandated in the UK.

The role of the ID and secure document industry is to ensure that procedures and checks are in place that grant each citizen secure access to the rights and privileges that are associated with their unique identity.

Currently, there are around 280 local authorities setting distinct rules, processes and fees for motorists wanting to obtain a taxi licence in the UK. But industry experts are now calling for plans to harmonise the procedures in line with the principles of ‘fill it out once’.

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.

Manufacturer of secure substrates Landqart and TECH5, an innovator in the field of biometrics and digital identity management, have announced a partnership agreement to provide a solution for certificate-based documents which are secure, durable, and biometrically verifiable against the holder.

The almost unlimited access to high-quality printing services, as well as to sophisticated graphics software, has increased the quality of document forgery in recent years to the point where it is becoming more difficult for border control officers to tell the difference between real and fake secure documents.

Perhaps spurred on by the unfounded allegations of US voters taking on false IDs during the last presidential election, the UK government introduced an Elections Integrity Bill which has been working its way through the UK parliament.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a US government lab that publishes standards for government agencies to safely use cryptography, has just announced the winners of a six-year-long competition to create quantum-safe algorithms.

Nigeria’s National Identification Management Commission (NIMC) is tasked with assigning a unique National Identity Number and issuing General Multi-Purpose Cards to 148 million citizens by 2024.

In an article published in June’s edition of Deloitte Insights, the consultancy firm sets out a new vision of identity and claims that the future of government rests on the future of identity.

Veridos, a leading provider of integrated identity solutions, has acquired Valid USA’s identity solutions business to further grow its presence in the US market. A particular focus will be on enhancing its driving licence offering.

The Finnish government is proposing a digital identification app in 2023 on smartphones and tablets that aims to prevent gender-based discrimination and promote work-based immigration.

Following consultations with various stakeholders over the past few weeks, Reconnaissance International, organiser of the High Security Printing Asia Conference scheduled to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 5-7 December 2022 has regretfully announced its postponement to 4-6 December 2023.

Reconnaissance International is already preparing for The Holography Conference™ which will continue to be held online, taking place this year from 5-6 December.

German health insurance firm BARMER has commissioned T-Systems and Verimi to provide and manage the digital identities of its 8.7 million policyholders. The contract has a term of seven years, and the companies have not disclosed the contract value.

The Biden administration will create a new identification card for immigrants that will serve as a single card to access immigration files and eventually be accepted by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for travel.

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.

Reducing the environmental impact of manufacturing processes in the ID & secure document industry is a critical societal issue that is, rightly, attracting a lot of management attention.

Special awards have been made to a number of newly introduced ID documents that have demonstrated outstanding technical sophistication and excellence in design and security.

On 27 June, the Brazilian federal government unveiled a new passport design and issued the first new national identity card (CIN).

Javelin’s 2022 Identity Fraud Study provides a comprehensive analysis of fraud trends in the context of a changing technological and payments landscape.

The future of sovereign identity documents such as ID cards, passports and driving licences is virtual – according to leading provider of integrated identity solutions, Veridos. However, there are still some key challenges to overcome, with IDs remaining ‘phygital’ for the time being.

An alliance of charities has sued the Ugandan government, according to an article published by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, arguing that vulnerable groups have been denied access to potentially life-saving services due to flaws in the national ID card rollout.

Biometrics technology provider, ID R&D, has published a paper titled ‘Mitigating Demographic Bias in Facial Presentation Attack Detection’ containing results and lessons learned from the world’s first test of a facial liveness algorithm for demographic bias by an independent, accredited biometrics laboratory.

The Ministry of Public Security will issue new-style passports from 1 July 2022, according to the Vietnam Government Portal. The move implements Circular 73/2021/TT-BCA of the Ministry of Public Security on passport specimens.

By the end of this year, Schengen member states will be required to have a biometric entry and exit system to register non- European citizens crossing an external EU border.

Document fraud is one of the tools used by international terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking and other forms of transnational crime. A tri-national meeting was recently held in Argentina within the framework of the EUROFRONT Programme on training and technical assistance.

Estonia is famed for its ‘white nights’ in mid-summer, when the sun hardly sets, and for the fact that its citizens are amongst the most tech-savvy in Europe, being one of the top-ranking countries in the world on the UN’s E-Government Development Index.

After the success of the Tax Stamp & Traceability Forum™, Malta (16-18 May), the next opportunity for the ID and secure document industry to come together is at the High Security Printing™ EMEA conference in Tallinn, Estonia (13-15 June).

Apple, Google and Microsoft have all agreed to implement the password-less system proposed by the FIDO Alliance. The body has announced that the three companies have committed to phasing out passwords.

As a side event to the 78th session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the UN hosted ‘Building a More Resilient Future with Inclusive Civil Registration and Vital Statistics – Strengthening Linkages with the Health Sector’.

The official groundbreaking ceremony for a new security document printworks took place in Entebbe, Uganda earlier in May.

Sri Lanka’s unique digital ID project, prepared jointly by the Sri Lanka Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) and the Department of Registration of Persons, is about to go live, according to news reports in the country.

Some one million Bangladeshi drivers are currently driving with an ‘acknowledgment slip’, but they are not able to apply for government and private jobs as they don’t have smart driving licence cards.

Behind the ‘will-he-won’t-he’ and the ‘can-he-can’t-he’ stories of Elon Musk’s attempts to acquire Twitter lurks another equally interesting tussle about identity, and how we assert and verify it when we are not physically present.

The use of fake ID’s has for some time been linked with a whole range of serious crimes including terrorism and people smuggling as well as, at the other end of the criminality spectrum, less serious misdemeanours such as under-age drinking.

In the aftermath (for some, though not for all) of a global health crisis like COVID, it is inevitable that the media engages in some ‘who did what and when’ style of journalism.

Does the track record of some firms who capture peoples’ facial images without their consent make it impossible for facial recognition to get a fair hearing in the court of public opinion – or are there deeper issues concerning the technology?

At a time when other countries chop and change ID contractors on a regular basis, El Salvador is reaping the rewards from sticking with the same contractor over three successive contract periods.

Since February, over 700,000 Ukrainian refugees have exercised their right to obtain a Polish national identity (PESEL) number, which gives them access to various public services and benefits.

Veridos and the Latin American systems integrator GSI Sertracen have announced the signing of a major contract with Costa Rica.

Experts, government representatives, technologists and commentators gathered in Austria’s stunning capital city of Vienna (11-13 April) to share recent technical developments in the fields of optical and digital document security.

Whilst pockets of personally identifiable information exist in all countries’ civil registries, some in physical documents but increasingly in digital records, not all countries are at the same stage of establishing a national digital identity.

Residents of Luxembourg now have access to a mobile ID app designed to act as a kind of authentication companion to the country’s physical ID card.

Earlier this month, the Argentine Minister of the Interior, Eduardo Wado de Pedro, announced that the process of physically stamping passports will stop and that the process of registering entry and exit from the country will be digitised.

Ugandan ePassports, driving licences and other security documents will soon be produced within the country, according to a plan by the Ministry of Works and Transport.

In this next episode of the occasional series of country profiles, Francis Tuffy took on the hard task of visiting the beautiful Principality of Monaco to find out about the government’s strategy for connected digital identity… and conclude some unfinished business.

An article in the South China Morning Post reports that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has revealed that the country is planning to launch a digital national ID card before the end of the year.

In its June 2021 edition, ID & Secure Document News™ reported that the European Commission was promoting its proposal for a regulation that would amend the electronic identification, authentication and trust services (eIDAS) regulation and establish a framework for a European Digital Identity.

After two years of COVID inflicted disruptions, Reconnaissance International was able to restart the acclaimed series of High Security Printing Conferences with a fiesta feel in Mexico City (14-16 March) with seminars, presentations, key notes, an exhibition and prizes… lots of prizes!

After the ‘build the wall’ years of the Trump administration, the US is now coming to terms with the fact that it’s not only people but also goods and services that want to cross the Mexico-US border: as these two examples from Texas and Arizona demonstrate.

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.

In this latest episode in the occasional series of invited articles, Corinna Schindler, Global Vice President Business Line Verification from Veridos, sets out her reasons why only through cooperation and technology can international travellers get a truly ‘seamless’ experience.

As the EU starts to trial aspects of the European Digital Identity through large-scale pilots to test the deployment of the European Digital Identity Wallet, the UK is planning its own Office for Digital Identities.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) says it welcomes the creation by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) of a global directory of public keys required for authentication of health credentials.

Governments, for their part, working with commercial organisations have established vaccination certification protocols and documents that reflect the individual public health care circumstances of each country, region and bloc.

Estonia has, for a long time, been recognised as a tech-savvy country – boasting the highest number of tech-startups per person in the world. It took a step further into the eState provision of citizen services in 2002 with the introduction of the ID card.

In what looks like a fairly hasty policy revision, the US Inland Revenue Service has modified its position that online tax filers would be required to submit a selfie to a third-party identity verification company in order to access their accounts.

While Cisco might not be the first company that springs to mind when you think of quantum computing, the company has made developing quantum technologies one of its top priorities for 2022.

Veridos is one of the key players in the industry, so Francis Tuffy – editor of IDN – sat down with Marc-Julian, newly appointed CEO and Chair of the Management Board, to learn a little more about the leader and his strong purpose.

The HSP (High Security Print) Awards are normally held three times a year, coinciding with three regional HSP conferences – for Asia, EMEA and Latin America respectively.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has recently tweeted that the use of a state’s national identity card for international travel is not at the discretion of the issuing authority but is a decision for the receiving state.

Thales has been awarded a new contract to provide the District of Columbia Department of Motor Vehicles (DC DMV) with secure driving licences and ID cards.

Apple is making US states foot part of the bill and provide customer support for its plan to turn iPhones into digital identification cards.

In the socio-political dialogue, topics such as gender, diversity, participation and accessibility – in other words, diversity in general – play a more important role now than ever before.

ID & Secure Document News has asked some brave weathermen and women from the ID and secure document industry to take a look at their barometers and make some predictions as to where the head and tail winds will be pushing and pulling us this year.

Organisers of the High Security Printing Conferences (HSP), Reconnaissance International, have announced the programme for the upcoming HSP Latin America event which, originally scheduled to be held in June 2020, is now taking place in Mexico City on 14-16 March.

HID Global has been awarded a contract by Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) for its Passport Issuance and Processing System. The contract will see HID Global provide a new operating system for the Department’s Passport Service.

Looking back at my predictions for 2021, I’m once again drawn to the conclusion that the pandemic is not over yet. On the contrary, at the beginning of 2022, we are going through an evolution of the virus.

Matt Cole, the newly appointed head of Public Security & Identity activities at IDEMIA, works at the interfaces of physical & digital identity and public & private sector services. ID & Secure Document News met up with Matt (virtually) to learn some more about his ideas and plans for the future.

The European Union’s new entry-exit system (EES) is scheduled to start in May 2022 and will help to make the entry and exit of third-country nationals simpler, more transparent and more secure. People from third countries will have to register with their fingerprints and a facial image when entering the Schengen area.

In just under two months the Optical & Digital Document Security (ODDS) conference will get underway in Vienna, Austria. ODDS merges the extremely successful Optical Document Security conference with the newer Digital Document Security conference to recognise the growing interdependence of these two domains.