On this episode the ID Talk podcast, Alex Perala and Tony Bitzionis sit down with Rahul Parthe, CTO, Chairman, and co-founder of TECH5, to explore how decentralization is transforming national digital identity systems. The discussion covers how decentralized approaches can reduce costs, enhance security, and empower citizens, particularly in the Global South. Mr. Parthe shares insights on his vision, as well as the benefits of decentralized data exchange, as well as TECH5’s modular approach to building scalable, privacy-preserving digital public infrastructure.

As Rahul makes clear in the discussion, decentralization is key to ensuring that large-scale digital ID systems are resilient and can resist modern cyberthreats. “If I could divide and conquer — decentralize the infrastructure and the data — then my attack vectors go down, my investment goes down, and I can still achieve what I’m planning to achieve as a country,” he explains.

At a time when privacy concerns and infrastructure challenges are top of mind, this discussion highlights a path forward that balances security, scalability, and citizen empowerment. Don’t miss this fascinating episode that outlines a realistic and adaptable approach to digital identity as these systems begin to be implemented on a massive scale around the world.

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The post TECH5 Lays the Foundations for Decentralized Digital ID on the ID Talk Podcast appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

This episode of the ID Talk podcast delves into a fascinating new digital ID solution – the GovWallet, which combines biometric digital identity technologies with Visa’s payment technology and infrastructure. To lay it all out, ID Talk hosts Tony Bitzionis and Alex Perala are joined by TECH5 co-founder, Chairman, and CTO Rahul Parthe, with Svyatoslav Senyuta, Government Solutions Regional Leader, CEMEA at Visa.

The GovWallet represents an ambitious effort aimed at a national scale. As Rahul explains, their work on the GovWallet has been about building digital infrastructure, and not simply ID infrastructure. Self-Sovereign Identity is foundational to the GovWallet, but, as Rahul explains, that’s really just a starting point for a wider set of integrated digital capabilities – including, importantly, those that involve payments and other financial transactions, as Visa’s Svyatoslav goes on to detail.

From there, the discussion touches on a range of related questions and topics, including – among other things – financial inclusion, biometric data privacy, and how digital ID technology is already transforming government services, as seen in non-GovWallet examples.

The conversation offers an inside look at one of the earliest and most ambitious ID-focused digital infrastructure efforts in the world, guided by executives with first-hand knowledge and expertise.

You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify, or through the media player via this link.

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The interview transcript

Alex Perala: Hello and welcome to ID Tech. I am Alex Perala, and this is my colleague, Tony Bitzionis. We recorded an interview with two guests, gentlemen from a pretty big companies Svyatoslav Senyuta from Visa and Rahul Parthe, the Chairman and Co-founder of TECH5. We wanted to talk to them because they have a new government wallet solution, GovWallet. It is a digital ID that integrates Visa’s payment technology. It’s a pretty unique approach to digital ID, and it seems like there’s a real opportunity for it to get some traction in a number of countries and regions.

Tony Bitzionis: This interview includes a lot of information. For example, Svyatoslav is Ukrainian, and he provides examples from Ukraine’s own digital ID system, not related to GovWallet, but a separate system as an illustrative example. And then you have Rahul’s technical expertise. And so, I feel like we’ve got it all in one episode.

Alex Perala: It is super interesting. So, definitely worth listening all the way to the end. We are very happy to be joined by two gentlemen who can speak to a really exciting project that is helping to build the emerging digital infrastructure that we see popping up around the world. Welcome to the show, and I would like to ask each of you to briefly introduce yourself, share your role in this project, and then we’ll get into what the project itself is and what GovWallet is. So, Svyatoslav, why don’t we start with you?

Svyatoslav Senyuta: I’m leading government solutions in Central Europe, Middle East, and Africa in Visa. I’m based out of Dubai, and I’m responsible for any commercial engagements with government institutions and organizations. And a core task of my function at Visa is to ensure that we are helping the governments to go through the digital transformation journey and to ensure that we are reaching very high levels of financial and digital inclusion across all the markets.

Alex Perala: Nice to meet you Svyatoslav. I would also like to ask Rahul to introduce himself. A lot of our audience probably already knows who you are, Rahul, but can you introduce yourself for the newcomers?

Rahul Parthe: I’m the Co-founder, CTO and Chairman of TECH5. In our collaboration with Visa, the focus is being on building digital infrastructure. And I want to categorically say that it’s not an ID infrastructure, we are bringing a lot more things together. And as the function of Svyatoslav’s division is to bring government solutions, especially from the payments angle, what I’m doing in this context is working on the digital identity infrastructure part of it. With Visa we are tying the digital identity infrastructure together with the payment infrastructure, which enables the governments to not only  implement efficient delivery of government services, but also enable the enterprises in each country to build a digital infrastructure, which is based on self-sovereign identity principles. So, I’m focusing on building that vision and then the whole end-to-end offering for the governments.

Tony Bitzionis: Can you give us an explainer of what the GovWallet is?

Rahul Parthe: Digital identity is the buzzword. And most of the times when we go to talk to governments, they say that they want Digital ID, but if you really dig deeper, they often do not understand it in detail. This is where we go and explain them that digital ID in an isolation is pretty much meaningless. It has to be an infrastructure where the identity helps realize some use cases and helps the citizens to avail those services in a secure and privacy-preserving manner. The GovWallet is a digital agent of an SSI-based wallet. In isolation it is just a wallet, but that’s not what we are offering. What we are offering is the entire infrastructure where we work with the governments to not only help them to provide the citizens with a wallet in hand or in virtual cloud, where they can hold their credentials, which could be identity credentials or payment credentials, but then also help the governments issue standards-compliant credentials from the trusted sources. We also help them to come up with governance policies, and rules of how to take it and implement as a framework. Those policies and frameworks are for financial, legal, commercial and technical aspects.

One of the key use cases is payments. When you are transacting with the digital ecosystem, you are always exchanging something. Most of the times it’s trust, but the biggest value transaction is money. And this is where we are working with Visa, and Visa has its own ecosystem of government solutions, enabling governments to do other programs.

Svyatoslav Senyuta: In principle, Visa as a business is entirely built on trust, and the entire digital ecosystem is built on trust. It is very important when you are working with governments, and there are lots and lots of different sensitivities. And when governments look at the core objectives in terms of digitization, they’re looking first and foremost on how to ensure digital inclusion and financial inclusion, as well as how to provide people with access to services.

Many people today across the globe are excluded to very big extent from being able to access public services, which are critical for their lives. They don’t have access to financial services, so they are excluded, in fact, from the financial system. So, we were looking for how to bring all these elements together for developing and underdeveloped countries. Many of those countries do not have even a national foundational ID. This is a problem, especially in Africa. More than 400 million people do not have foundational IDs. This is critical because if people do not have foundational IDs, they cannot access public services and many other things which are super important. So, in order to address it, we are working with more than 15,000 financial institutions and Fintech companies across the world.

Therefore, we started a strategic collaboration with TECH5 to find the ways to combine two extremely important elements. And, if people look at the formula of financial and digital inclusion, effectively it contains three core pillars. The first one is obviously the ID. And as everything is now moving to digital, digital ID becomes the best form factor. This is where all these processes are moving, and it helps to scale fast as well. The second pillar is digital payments. To make the ID functional, you need to add payment use cases that will be driving the usage. And the third pillar is all about automating processes and regulations.

If you bring these three elements together with the right strategy, it creates a great synergy. We have seen this happening in India with the Aadhaar system, giving significant boost in a very short term to such an immense population. We believe that the combination of those elements is very important, and the ID Wallet is very critical for payments. To ensure that all people have access to financial services, it is important to help the governments to leverage the ID rollout and combine it with provision of local government wallets, which will immediately open access to financial ecosystem.

The government wallets reduce the cost, the risk, and the inefficiency of legacy payment systems. In addition, government wallets give a full transparency and visibility and allow a government to improve the process in order to avoid identity-related fraud. The digital ID component is critical because the government needs to know to whom, for example, the government payment is made, like different types of social aid, social support, pensions, and so on.

For government disbursements, today the trend is just sending funds to bank accounts. People cash it out, and the effect of cashless economy is going down. Cash is still prevailing. But bringing in the wallet component and bringing it into digital domain will help the government understand how efficient their public disbursements are, because it adds a component of programmability. For example, if a government decides to make a payment for health support or education support, they can limit the way people can spend those funds. Additionally, they can give people access and ability to make the payments to the government, improving the way of collecting taxes, fees, fines, penalties, and so on. These instruments bring additional revenues to the governments and helping them to reinvest into their digital infrastructure.

A good example of such synergy and an efficient arrangement of the e-government ecosystem is Ukraine. It was kind of the start of government growth, with the goal of building an inclusive digital government ecosystem, or as they call it, a digital government in the smartphone.

Alex Perala: As both of you were talking, something finally clicked for me. When I first saw the news that TECH5 had partnered with Visa, I thought, that this is interesting, but why payments and ID together? But now it makes sense. And I also remember back to a couple of years ago, I read a book by the economist Stephanie Kelton, who was arguing that the whole basis of government in a way is building a financial relationship with citizens, whether it’s collecting taxes or giving them the means to spend money for healthcare and food. So, I’m not an economist, and I probably completely messed up her argument, but it clicked to me that payments are foundational for how we identify ourselves and relate to the government and relate to non-government entities like banks.

Your employer wants to know who you are, and they want a government official to tell them this. So, that all totally makes sense. And there is a million directions we could go with this, but one thing I want to clarify before we go further is what is the role of biometrics in the GovWallet, and in general what’s the approach to authentication? Because of course, the stakes of this are pretty high. It is serving a very important role, so you have to get authentication and identity. I guess, Rahul, this is probably for you. Please let us know what is the approach that is being taken here?

Rahul Parthe: This is a good question, and this is the basis of the whole discussion. The wallet itself acts as an onboarding endpoint. So, citizens are advised to download this government wallet, and then they can enroll themselves to get their digital verifiable credential from a trusted authority. And, depending on which government it is and what methods of proving the identity is used, the wallet allows citizens to capture their face or / and fingerprints, using the back and front camera of their phone. And then in some countries, there are reference databases to verify it against. Next, the issued credential gets pushed into the wallet. In some countries, the whole IDV process can be in place, where a citizen shows their identity card, takes selfie and a does liveness check, and so on. This is the beginning point for a citizen. They download the wallet, request a credential and receive it. In all of this, as the platform providers, neither TECH5, nor Visa ever holds the credentials. We do not have access to the PII or the information. It is all stored and processed in the central location where the government issues it, and then sends it to the wallet of the user. The role of biometrics is to first verify a person during the onboarding process or when they are getting the credential onto the wallet, and then verify them, for example, when they want to do an eKYC to open a bank account or apply for a credit card. In this case, the financial institution, with consent from the user, might require another biometric check.

With such technology, the eKYC process for the banks becomes like a single click. The GovWallet offers an interactive process where you just go through a few clicks, and by doing that, you can open a bank account literally in a few seconds.

The third role of biometrics comes into play when it is all about security and privacy. To improve security, verification methods can be configured depending on the risk of the transaction. For example, if it is a low-risk transaction, only a face verification is required, and if it is a high-risk transaction, face and fingerprints verification should be asked for. It is important to mention that no dedicated sensor is required to capture face and fingerprints – TECH5’s contactless biometrics acquisition system called T5-AirSnap allows for such capture using a standard front or back camera of a smartphone. In case if the transaction is of a highest risk, the user can configure to request for face, fingerprint and voice or pin code verification. All the matching is done on the device, so it can be controlled by the user.

The wallet comes with a feature that enables single sign-on and replaces the OTPs, which are very exposed to card swaps and other fraud. Now the same wallet could be used for logging into government services or private enterprises with a passkey-like mechanism. So, this is the fourth role of biometrics.

The fifth role would be in privacy. Biometrics and cryptography technologies of the wallet allow for selective disclosure and offline verification. For example, if I need to prove that I’m over 21, I can disclose only this part of data. And, when I show my identity, somebody also needs to make sure that it’s me and not my son bringing in the phone or the physical document. So, they could do a biometric verification on the spot, offline, without consulting any database.

So, the role of biometrics in this process is very large – from verification before the issuance of a credential to authentication and authorization for transactions.

Tony Bitzionis: Digital ID and digital government infrastructure are very important and impactful parts of this industry. We inevitably end up speaking about them for some amount of time each week, but whenever I am talking to a friend or a family member about what I do, this topic comes up and almost always the first question that they have is regarding privacy protection and how it’ll impact them and their privacy. So, my question is how has the GovWallet team approached the issue of privacy protection?

Rahul Parthe: We are pretty much sticking to the SSI principles. So, the credentials are between you and the issuer (the government), and then between you and the relying party. You can choose what you disclose to the relying parties using the selective disclosure. There are trust frameworks that ensure that you are not sharing your data with random people. The communication between you and the service provider is fully encrypted, peer-to-peer (P2P). Nobody in the world knows what is going on between you and the service provider, only the two of you. So, we are sticking to all the security and privacy principles, and the whole stack is built on the SSI principles.

We made sure that our solution is compliant with security standards and is privacy preserving. In fact, we improve security and privacy by providing technologies for offline verification.

Our goal is inclusion. And inclusion means that you need to deal with both, people who have smartphones, and those who don’t have smartphones. So, the solution that we are offering caters for both: people with smartphones or people without smartphones or features phones can equally participate in the digital transformation, using an agent model, where they go to an agent, go through biometric check, and so on. And there are certain measures in the ecosystem and the app that allow the agent not to exploit the person. This is of course not relevant to the western world, but for the parts in the world that we are working together with, it’s a very important option.

Svyatoslav Senyuta: I think that data privacy is obviously a critical element of the security of the ecosystem, and one of the primary objectives and goals for us is to ensure that everything is extremely secure and intuitive for the citizens, and effectively complies with the government regulations, which are different in every country. When we are getting into the process, we do product due diligence for the local requirements, and all the implementation goes within those requirements. It is important to mention that Visa does not store any information, and we want to ensure that, when we are building those ecosystems, the governments also have full confidence that they have and own all the biometric information and have full control over all the mechanisms of data and information flow within the systems.

We are providing governments with technology, vision, expertise and knowledge, which are quite unique as of today in the market because those synergies are just starting to happen. And I believe that we will see more of those different collaborations in the future.

Security is our core principle, and we make sure that there is an absolute compliance with all the requirements of all the markets we are working on.

Alex Perala: If you are enrolled with your phone, what happens if you lose your phone? Rahul mentioned that there are agents someone can go to and confirm their identity without a phone. So, is that the answer? To go to the bank or whatever the government has designated and say that you don’t know where your device is, but you still have your face and fingerprints and ask for access to your identity wallet. Is that how it would work?

Rahul Parthe: The answer is yes and no. If you lose a phone and you buy a new phone, there are mechanisms to recover your wallet and credentials. It is like requesting a backup. Or you can buy a new phone and start from scratch – download the wallet and request your credentials from the government. You have both options. What you are not losing is your identity. Your identity is still with the government that is issuing the credential, and you need to just request a credential. There is also another option where you can go to another agent and recover your wallet.

Another thing that I would like to mention is that many countries are writing data privacy and protection acts and policies. When Visa and TECH5 support these countries by providing their expertise and sharing the information on how to implement such solution and technology offering, it helps counties to speed up the implementation of these policies and make their ecosystems or digital infrastructure in compliance with the policies they write.

Many countries look for best practices from other countries, adopt it, but the technology needs to catch up and ensure that the regulatory policies are perfectly implemented. Our offering helps the governments to comply with what they’ve written in the law.

Alex Perala: There are certain parts of the world that are mobile-first, and some where there is an opportunity, and there is a leapfrog where West is ahead in this new digital paradigm. Visa – TECH5 is a new partnership, as it was only announced in December, and I would like to learn what kind of  engagement are you seeing so far from governments with the GovWallet, if any?

Svyatoslav Senyuta: We have lots of interactions today, it is several dozens of those. We see a great interest from the government to start addressing the challenges they have, starting from the markets where they don’t have foundational IDs and where we can bring in health ID and other solutions even in such a challenging environment, as well as bring a payment component to the health ID, which is functional. There are other use cases, like helping to distribute subsidies when, for example, the country is suffering from droughts, and many farmers need support from the government. We have been also reached out by many organizations globally, which are struggling to deliver humanitarian support to people. They are looking for the solution for the last-mile-problem: how to reach out to those people who really need this help, and without the ID component it is almost impossible.

Today it is effectively done through cash, vouchers, et cetera. As you may imagine, there is a huge cost to this and, I assume, quite a significant fraud as well. So, we bring those digital ecosystems in place for the government to streamline all these processes and eliminate fraud.

As an existing example of a similar program, I can again talk about the Ukrainian system. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, people were reluctant to vaccinate, and there was a government program on how to stimulate vaccination. The government was willing to pay 1,000 in a local currency, which was roughly $40 for each twice vaccinated person at that time. The government leveraged their e-government platform, which had digital ID, and they have ensured that in a very short time, like 2-3 month, they have opened more than 13 million government wallets and provided people with incentives. There were 2 objectives: to stimulate vaccination and to ensure the incentive money were only spent from those wallets and spent only on those sectors of the economy that suffered most from COVID – to ensure that the government is incentivizing citizens, but also that the funds are channeled back into the economy into specific sectors. It worked perfectly well as it was an extremely seamless experience. People were very happy because it was easy to receive and spend the money. At some point, people asked for another cluster like pharmacies to be opened for this program so that people can spend the funding at pharmacies as well. And it has been done in a matter of two or three days. This solution provided the government with reliable information and visibility about the development of the program and might help building better public policies in the future.

To ensure that such program is efficient, the government needs to provide two types of access – access to identity, because this is the cornerstone of any access to any government program, and access to payments, because everything is rotating around payments. Whenever you need to use public services, you need to pay. In most cases, whether you need to get any other services, it requires payments as well. And this is where we are bringing this amazing synergy for creating access to help and to uplift everyone everywhere in each corner of the world. And we are happy to do this.

Rahul Parthe: When we started to speak to the governments, they knew that they need digital identity, but it was not clear what it really means and where they have their primary focus. For example, financial inclusions work in isolation, as well as access control, e-government services, digital signatures, and so on. We went to these governments and told them that a citizen should be in the center of everything, and if they need to do, for example, four things, they should be able to do it from one place, and the government should approve their access to their identity, allowing them to access physical or digital spaces, financial transactions and attestations.

With our solution, we provide governments with technology and experience of such implementations, a roadmap, as well as the app that they can test and understand better. They see tangible things, as well as they see what the citizens would be really doing and how they will be receiving services – from receiving incentives to paying fines, all in a secure and private manner. And there will be no intermediary players who would receive and store any information – everything is done only between the user and the service provider.

The beauty of this solution is that everything can be implemented within three to six months, and they can start using it. This is an amazingly fast implementation compared to traditional identity infrastructure projects which might take years of investment and building. The reaction of governments, as you can imagine, is very positive and that they would like to implement it.

It has been an amazing journey. We only started working together with Visa in December, but the moment the teams started approaching governments, we started receiving and great level of appreciation for working as partners with governments, educating them, and demonstrating them that sovereignty of the data is guaranteed as they will not have any dependency on any foreign country for their IT infrastructure. We are ensuring inclusion and enabling their vision of a digital nation, and it is very appreciated. We are very pleasantly surprised with the number of contacts, meetings and interactions we already have with so many governments in the MENA region and around the world.

Svyatoslav Senyuta: I would like to add one comment about the customer centricity. So, if you look at developed countries in terms of digital infrastructure, there are a few countries that have amazing build outs. However, in order interact with the government, you need to download like 10 applications, and it is not as efficient as it could be. So, to make it more efficient, there should be one window, where, if you as a citizen need something, you go to the government and get the help you require through that single app.

I am also sure that in the future the government will be proactively reaching out to you. For example, if you are reaching a pension age, they will open you a pension ID that will be generated automatically and pushed to your government wallet. You can also have it as a verifiable document, but at the same time you will start automatically receiving your pension into your government wallet without a need to go anywhere for it. You will not need to go through eKYC, because your identity is already verified by the government, by the state itself. We will see those trends coming in as well. But the core is to avoid the fragmentation, but go through the consolidation of the digital assets and build customer-centric products for citizens.

Tony Bitzionis: I would like to ask how do these projects come about? It must be so complicated. What is it like working with governments on innovative project like this that there’s no real established playbook for. What is that experience like?

Svyatoslav Senyuta: Indeed, there is no playbook. And I think that we are one of the first few who are elaborating on this. The core factor here is a political will. If you look at the top three objectives of most of the governments, you will notice that digitization is one of them, and I think that this is a great commitment which is driven by the governments themselves. It’s being driven by multiple organizations in this market. And I think that we will see a big I would say revolution in the domain within the next five to seven years.

The level of infrastructure today is very different from country to country. Some countries are super sophisticated, and sometimes it is complicated to get into a discussion and suggest the right architecture to them. But what we see in general across many countries in terms of digital infrastructure, is that here is a large amount of effort we need to put in, and we are ready to do the heavy lifting. We are addressing all countries, no matter how many people are living there. And I believe that the most important thing is trust that we are building by working together with the governments. We have and share a big vision, helping them to meet their objectives in a very short time.

If there is a political will and commitment from the government, it can be happening really fast. And I can say that within the next six to twelve months we can see amazing things happening in the market. This solution changes everything for citizens – they need only their smartphones as everything is digital. This is the world where they can do literally any legally meaningful action like boarding planes or trains, paying for services and goods in a fully digital manner, getting access to physical and digital spaces, and so on. This creates a completely different lifestyle.

What we see is that the adoption of such solutions is really high. Before I was thinking that the adoption will depend on age, but believe it or not, it is not. For example, getting back to the Ukraine’s case, more than 25% of users of their digital government app are 55+ years old. So, I think that this is an intuitive digitization, where people don’t need to learn how to use it, but can just start using it because it is easy and intuitive. In this case everybody will use it daily, weekly, et cetera, because it’s nice and convenient.

Rahul Parthe: There is one statement I would just add is that the stack that we built for the governments has open architecture. The government does not have to solve all the problems at day one. They can first let the citizens get their IDs, then provide the most critical use cases, and then add more. Because it is an open architecture, the government can easily plug in use cases and workflows and add relying parties. This gives the comfort to the governments as they don’t have to wait until a fully ready plan and then go live. They can incrementally improve the system.

The adoption of the system will depend on how many use cases the government brings to the table. If the users will see that with one wallet they can do 10 different things, or a million different things, they will stick to it. It will also help to improve the happiness index of the citizens as well as their trust level to their government.

The post ID Talk: Why ID and Payments are Foundational to Digital Infrastructure, with Visa and TECH5 appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

SafetyDetectives recently conducted an insightful interview with Rob Haslam, the Chief Strategy Officer at TECH5. Rob shared his extensive experience in the biometric and digital identity market, highlighting TECH5’s innovative contributions to global biometric standards. With a focus on advancing technologies such as contactless fingerprint capture and secure digital credentials, TECH5 is at the forefront of ensuring secure and convenient identity verification. Rob also discussed the crucial role of AI in enhancing biometric technologies and provided a glimpse into the future milestones TECH5 aims to achieve.

Can you introduce yourself and talk about your role at TECH5?

My name is Rob Haslam, and I am the Chief Strategy Officer at TECH5. I am responsible for defining and executing our global strategy in the fast-evolving biometric and digital identity market. My role involves collaborating closely with other executives and department heads to align strategies company-wide, ensuring we are on the right path for growth. Additionally, I manage our investor relationships, both in terms of current investors and with a view to future investment rounds.

What are some of the flagship features of TECH5 and how it contributes to the development of global biometric standards?

In recent years, the biometric landscape has been changing rapidly. This has brought new technologies as well as new use cases. Biometrics has become a key to securing transactions and accessing online services, as well as digital and physical spaces.

TECH5 is at the forefront of developing new technologies to support these use cases, constantly investing in innovation and the design of software platforms for governments and enterprises. A great example of such innovation is our contactless fingerprint capture technology – T5-AirSnap Finger. It allows for detection, capture, quality assessment, and enhancement of fingerprint images within seconds using a smartphone’s built-in camera. It also runs a liveness check to ensure that the data is taken from a real person. This technology is widely used during digital onboarding and remote identity verification by banks, telcos, and governments, allowing for biometric data acquisition without using expensive purpose-built fingerprint scanners. It works in both remote and assisted modes. Contactless fingerprint capture is quickly becoming a new standard and bringing such benefits as convenience and reduced total cost of ownership.

Another important direction in which TECH5 innovates is secure credentials. Digital identity is becoming ever more important, as technology evolves to serve post-COVID use cases, pushing the world towards a new digital-first era. Governments in different countries are actively developing standards for digital identity to ensure data protection and interoperability, and TECH5 is very active here.

At TECH5, we started working on digital ID technologies before the pandemic, and our first biometric-powered platform allowing for the issuance and management of secure credentials – T5-IDencode – was launched in 2020. Back then, we introduced a digital data container – T5-Cryptograph – that can store biometrics and demographic data in an encrypted format, allowing the linking of an identity holder to a physical or digital credential biometrically. Today, this technology is used in various countries and meets all key international requirements.

Later, witnessing the transition to digital IDs but knowing that physical credentials will stay with us alongside digital ones for at least another decade, we also launched T5-FaceLink – a biometric security feature for the protection of facial images on printed identity documents from alteration or substitution. We believe that it is key to create biometric technologies protecting both physical and digital credentials to embrace inclusion.

Today, we are working on several more biometric platforms and offerings that we hope will be widely used and set new standards in the biometric technology world. But in this interview, I would like to talk about one key biometric function – multi-modal matching.

The use of multi-modal biometric matching platforms fosters inclusion and reduces fraud in national-scale projects, becoming one of the requirements to ensure efficient identification, de-duplication, and verification of citizens. Multi-modal ABIS (Automated Biometric Identification System) platforms can work with national biometric databases with face, fingerprint, or iris data, and identify or verify a person using several biometric modalities at the same time. TECH5 has offered tri-modal matching systems since its inception and has proven their efficiency in some of the world’s largest national ID projects. Our matching technology is at the heart of the world’s second-largest such program, in Indonesia, for example, where more than 220 million people’s data (1 face, ten fingers and two iris images per citizen) supports a variety of government and commercial use cases. TECH5 does not hold this data; rather, our technology enables its rapid and accurate matching as required. This sovereign data is always in the custody of the Indonesian government.

How does regular benchmarking contribute to the advancement and reliability of your biometric technologies?

Technologies should not be created in a vacuum. It is important to regularly participate in various independent tests to compare your technologies with those of other market-leading companies. The algorithms used across all three biometric modalities of TECH5 are consistently ranked top-tier by authorities such as NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, under the US Department of Commerce). We also participate in various tests with labs like iBeta to ensure the quality of our technologies. This helps us to ensure that we provide our partners and customers with best-in-class technologies.

It is also important to benchmark new technologies, such as fingerprint liveness detection. With only a few available on the market, it is crucial to test and compare these technologies to improve them. TECH5’s latest neural network-based fingerprint liveness detection technology for mobile devices won first and second positions in the Liveness Detection (LivDet) 2023 Non-contact Fingerprint international competition, successfully detecting all spoofing attacks. This achievement, among others, demonstrates our technological excellence.

What role does biometrics play in the future of mobile payments and banking?

Today, biometrics already play a crucial role in preventing fraud and protecting customers’ data in many use cases, including banking and fintech. Facial biometric capture and matching technologies have been used for quite some time already for digital onboarding and verification to provide access to financial services such as digital payments, loans, signing of bank documents, and more. Now, with the arrival of new technology for fingerprint capture and verification using mobile devices, this biometric modality is also available for remote onboarding and matching, ensuring ease, high speed, and accuracy of data capture and verification. Adding fingerprints to existing workflows can also offer differentiated authentication, such as for higher-value transactions.

With our digital ID technologies powered by biometrics, P2P transactions and other financial operations become secure and easy: the digital IDs of payers and payees are linked to them biometrically, ensuring the legitimacy of transactions and thus enhancing trust.

Talking about the future, together with our partners, we are working on the joint development of next-generation digital identity solutions powered by SSI-based Digital Identity Wallets and trust services to build a digital public infrastructure that serves any use case that requires identity proving, access control, authentication and authorization, and payments. We are starting with a specific focus on government payment digitization. This innovation will help to ensure secure, fast, and easy transactions.

We have been getting a lot of attention relating to our strategic partnership with Visa. Visa has big ambitions in the payment space in emerging markets, and linking biometrically backed digital identities to payment transactions will create powerful new platforms in under-served parts of the world where billions of people are yet to reap the benefits of digitization.

How does artificial intelligence (AI) complement biometric technologies?

TECH5 has been an AI-based company since its inception in 2018. All our major offerings were developed using AI and we continue to expend significant resources in researching AI-based enhancements and innovations. Artificial Intelligence (AI) significantly improves the speed and accuracy of biometric algorithms. AI-based algorithms can process and analyze vast amounts of biometric data more rapidly and precisely than traditional methods. Moreover, AI’s ability to learn and adapt allows biometric systems to become more robust over time, accommodating changes in physical appearance and environmental conditions.

Initially applied to facial capture and matching, AI is now used for fingerprint, iris, voice, and other modalities. Among the benefits of AI-based algorithms I would highlight reduced template size, which leads to a lower cost of ownership, and the ability to quickly and accurately capture different types of biometric data, such as facial and fingerprint images, using a mobile phone or tablet’s camera.

Another and one of the most important enhancements to biometric technologies made possible by AI is liveness detection. This ensures that a real person provides their biometric data, preventing spoofing attacks. This technology also exists for different biometric modalities, such as face, fingerprints, voice and others.

Looking ahead, what is the next big milestone in biometrics you are aiming for?

One of the milestones we are aiming for in improving our biometric algorithms is achieving a zero-error rate for all our biometric modalities. Our technologies are among the fastest and most accurate in the world, but reaching a point where a biometric system achieves perfect accuracy – meaning no false positives or false negatives – represents a significant next step for all technology companies, including TECH5. This is critically important because biometric systems are used in high-security contexts such as border control, financial transactions, and access to sensitive information or facilities. Achieving a zero-error rate would ensure the highest level of security and trust, preventing unauthorized access and avoiding the inconvenience and potential harm of legitimate users being falsely rejected. Furthermore, it enhances user confidence and system reliability, which are crucial for the widespread adoption and integration of biometric technologies in various applications, thereby fostering inclusion.

We are also planning to include more biometric modalities in our matching platforms. This will allow us to have a highly flexible system capable of working with any database.

Finally, it is not only the excellence of biometric technologies that is important but also their application. We see the future of biometrics in digital identity and believe that our key role is in enabling digital infrastructure powered by biometrics. This infrastructure will provide people with access to services and enable transactions both within a country and around the world.

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Fingerprint, facial and iris biometric modalities are part of the AI and machine learning-based identity management systems technology of Switzerland-based TECH5, a company with customers in 20 countries.

Indonesia (288 million people), Ethiopia (127 million people) and Turkey (85 million people) are among the countries that use TECH5 to power their national ID systems. For these customers, TECH5 provided large biometric systems used to build closed-loop databases of foundational identification systems—the authoritative source of identity information for the general population—and integrates with those databases the credentials management to handle proof of identity.

Top private sector customers include banks, large telecom companies and identity verification service providers. Visa has become a partner and will work with TECH5 in building programs for governments.

TECH5 and Visa will collaborate on the intersection of payments and digital identity management in emerging markets. They have discussed several use cases including integrating an account at a Visa bank client for disbursements and payments with governmental ID systems.

Also being considered is a super app (a digital ID wallet) as part of a country’s digital infrastructure that would facilitate onboarding citizens and non-residents in any country and enabling them to utilize a Visa payment service through various digital channels.

TECH5’s ability to prove an identity offline using biometrics opens up possibilities for financial inclusion, including executing a payment without a consumer using a high-security card or a phone with a secure element. Banks could issue a paper card imprinted with a 2D barcode image that can contain their biometric information and payment credentials in an encrypted format.

A merchant could use its phone to scan the card and then take a photo of the consumer’s face or obtain their fingerprints to confirm a match of the person with a payment account. Use cases could also include a one-time voucher.

The TECH5 software platform or an SDK can also be used to capture fingerprints using a phone’s back camera and use that biometric to replace a one-time password for out-of-band authentications. It could also be integrated with an existing bank app and used for KYC (know your customer) compliance.

Other use cases include digital ID issuance, an ID wallet and management of the database. There are countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia that want national databases that can be leveraged for payments and disbursements for both intracountry and cross-border payments with neighbouring countries. Payment companies including Visa want to leverage these single-source, trusted national databases.

INTERVIEWED FOR THIS ARTICLE
Rahul Parthe is Chief Technology Officer at TECH5 Group in Troy, Michigan

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TECH5 is a true biometrics and digital identity innovator, known for its advanced multi-biometric matching systems, digital ID technologies, and contactless biometric capture platforms. The company focuses on developing secure, inclusive, and scalable identity management solutions for governments and private entities worldwide, and has been involved in some pioneering large-scale identity projects around the world. That’s why FindBiometrics was eager to hear directly from the company’s co-founder and CEO, Machiel van der Harst, about some of TECH5’s groundbreaking work.

The discussion reveals the depth of TECH5’s strategic partnership with Visa, aimed at revolutionizing digital government ecosystems worldwide. We also explore the practical applications of TECH5’s cutting-edge technologies in government projects, the significant role of the Modular Open-Source Identity Platform (MOSIP) in shaping future identity infrastructures, and the advantages of TECH5’s multimodal biometric systems. And we touch on TECH5’s latest technological advancements, including its groundbreaking contactless fingerprint capture technology, and emphasizes the company’s commitment to inclusivity in biometrics. Read on to hear from one of the leading vendoLink to media coveragers in the global identity space:

FindBiometrics: In December, TECH5 announced a major partnership: your organization is collaborating with Visa on a global initiative to enhance digital government ecosystems. What can you tell us about this initiative and its ambitious goals? 

Machiel van der Harst: We have great ambitions for our strategic partnership with Visa and are currently exploring the various ways in which we can get integrated into the Visa ecosystem. Together, we will focus on developing and enhancing digital government ecosystems on a global scale. We are currently working on designing a roadmap that encompasses a series of initiatives and projects aimed at establishing a robust foundation for advancing digital payments, digital identity management, and other ecosystem-driven services.

As a biometrics and digital identity player, TECH5 will provide its technologies and expertise to Visa, and we plan that our joint efforts will lead to implementing digital ID-based payment infrastructure and services on a national level in different regions of the world.

TECH5 is an established player in the government space on a global scale. How is TECH5’s technology being used by governments today?

TECH5’s multi-biometric matching (ABIS), contactless capture and digital ID technologies and platforms are used by Government entities globally in various use cases: from contactless capture and identification when creating or updating a National ID database, to digital ID issuance and police investigations.

The Ethiopia Fayda program is a great example of the implementation of TECH5’s biometric and digital ID technologies for a National ID program on a large scale, where T5-OmniMatch ABIS and T5-Digital ID are used for the issuance of next-generation foundational IDs in a country of over 120 million people.

TECH5 was founded by biometrics industry veterans and has a team of professionals who have played major roles in developing and implementing some of the world’s largest biometric implementation programs, including Indian Aadhaar (2009) and Indonesian National ID (2011), as well as some of the first ones, such as Saudi Arabia iris enrollment project (2002), UNHCR refugee registration project (2003), Afghanistan elections (2007), DRC UNDP / World Bank Guerrilla fighters demobilization (2006), and others. Today, TECH5’s software platforms are deployed on several continents serving over 1 billion identities.

Operating on a global scale requires compliance with regulations and participation in collaborative initiatives. An increasingly important one is Modular Open-Source Identity Platform, aka MOSIP. How does MOSIP contribute to the emerging identity infrastructure around the world, and what is TECH5’s relationship with it?

Today, MOSIP has already made a major impact on the Foundational ID systems in Asia and Africa, providing a free open-source middleware platform. This platform allows governments to implement a foundational ID system that provides citizens with unique digital IDs, facilitating the effective delivery of authentication services for public and private entities. As of now, over 93 million people are registered on MOSIP-Based Systems.

TECH5 was the first ABIS vendor to recognize MOSIP’s unique value proposition for an open-source National ID solution driving Foundational ID. In 2019, TECH5 invested its time and resources to assist MOSIP in fully integrating TECH5’s multi-biometric matching technology, including the T5-OmniMatch ABIS platform and Biometric SDKs for fingerprint, iris, and face recognition, with the MOSIP platform.

Having already integrated T5-OmniMatch ABIS, in 2021, TECH5 took a step further by integrating the T5-IDencode issuance platform – a part of its T5-Digital ID offering – with the MOSIP foundational identity platform. This includes biometric enrolment of a person as well as the issuance of secure and private digital IDs as a W3C Verifiable Credential with data sourced from a National ID database. Presently, all main TECH5’s matching and Digital ID platforms have statuses of MOSIP-Compliant and MOSIP-Integrated products.

TECH5’s commitment to MOSIP has always been very strong. We develop all our technologies and solutions for identity management around the principles of ID4D and are very passionate about the MOSIP project.

TECH5 can boast a multimodal biometrics portfolio, which includes fingerprint, face, and iris biometrics technology. The mainstream conception of biometrics is very face-focused today.What are the benefits of multimodality in the current biometrics and identity landscape?

We at TECH5 have developed all our matching systems with several biometric modalities, as we have seen an increasing need for such solutions in the market. There are several reasons why multi-modal biometric matching systems are essential for identity management and verification, including higher accuracy, security, inclusivity, flexibility, and convenience for the user compared to single-modal systems.

Verification using several biometric modalities offers a higher level of accuracy than relying on a single biometric modality because it leverages the inherent uniqueness of multiple physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, facial features, and iris scans. The multi-modal approach not only enhances security by making it more challenging for unauthorized users to mimic or spoof multiple biometric traits but also increases overall robustness by accounting for variations in data quality, environmental conditions, or changes in an individual’s biometric characteristics over time, ensuring a more reliable and foolproof means of identity authentication.

Multi-modal biometric systems are also more resilient to spoofing and fraudulent attempts, making them a critical tool in safeguarding sensitive information, securing access to critical infrastructure, and improving user experiences in a wide range of applications, from mobile devices and access control to financial services and government identification. As the technologies enabling deepfakes and similar attacks become more widespread, it becomes increasingly essential not to rely solely on facial biometrics for the future of identity verification and Digital ID. This allows to protect identity at every stage of its lifecycle. While face is omnipresent and seen as a main biometric factor for eKYC, we are seeing a huge demand for TECH5’s contactless fingerprint technology being adopted rapidly for customer on-boarding with major deployments in Africa and Latin America.

At TECH5, we develop and support technology for inclusion and deliver biometric matching systems that, by combining multiple biometric modalities such as fingerprints, face, and iris, not only enhance security by reducing the risk of false positives and impersonation but also accommodate individuals with varying physical characteristics and disabilities, ensuring inclusivity.

There were several product launches and updates in 2023, for example, a novel modality for TECH5 is its contactless fingerprint capture, as seen through T5-AirSnap Finger. What are TECH5’s new products and technological achievements of 2023? How does your contactless fingerprint solution work, and what are the key use cases for a technology like this? 

In 2023, we expanded TECH5’s portfolio by incorporating several technology platforms. This included the launch of T5-FaceLink, our biometric-based security feature designed to prevent photo substitution on printed documents, as well as several innovative platforms and solutions for the USA market through the acquisition of Imageware’s assets early in the year.

Another key technology of TECH5 that was constantly tested and certified in 2023, is T5-AirSnap Finger – our AI-based contactless fingerprint capture technology for mobile devices. This innovation enables accurate biometric acquisition by utilizing a smartphone’s built-in camera to capture images, ensuring the quality of the captured image(s), performing a liveness check, and then packaging and transmitting the data for verification or registration, all within seconds.

In 2023, T5-AirSnap Finger was granted a patent (US11721120B1) and successfully underwent the iBeta ISO 30107-3 PAD (Presentation Attack Detection) Level 1 evaluation, affirming the superior quality of its liveness detection technology. Furthermore, T5-AirSnap Finger received certification, alongside other TECH5 technologies, from the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework.

Today, T5-AirSnap Finger is actively utilized by enterprises such as Telcos, Banks, Fintech organizations, and IDV providers, as well as by government organisations. It serves as a crucial tool for contactless capture during digital onboarding and remote verification for SIM-registration, as well as for providing digital access to data and services.

In the Biometric Digital Identity Prism, TECH5 is classified as a Biometric ID Platform Catalyst. Your high ranking is attributed to innovations focused on inclusion — innovations like 2D Digital Storage for Biometrically Verifiable Digital ID. Why is inclusion an important mission in biometrics and identity for TECH5?

TECH5’s history began with biometric-based National ID programs in underdeveloped countries. There, we have seen a need for inclusive technologies that allow easy and cost-efficient issuance and distribution of credentials, as well as biometric verification of a credential against its holder using available devices such as mobile phones, without the need for an internet connection. To provide Governments with such a solution, we started working on T5-Digital ID – an offering that included all main technologies and expertise of TECH5 and allowed for multi-modal contactless biometric capture, easy issuance of an encrypted credential in digital and printed formats, and completely offline biometric matching. This solution has eliminated the need for purpose-built capture devices, an internet connection, or smart cards.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent chip crisis confirmed the need for a new decentralized identity solution that will be inclusive – easy to use by everyone, including those without a smartphone.

Delivering inclusive digital ID through continuous innovation, facilitating frictionless identity management without compromising security and privacy, is our mission as a company. We firmly believe that this inclusion can be achieved through partnerships between technology companies, open-source organizations like MOSIP, Governments, and Enterprises. Our journey thus far confirms this belief, as we see how our technologies are being used across more than 60 vertical markets globally, ensuring inclusion for everyone.

What are TECH5’s other key achievements of 2023 and plans for 2024, and why it is important for the industry?

In 2023, TECH5 doubled its revenues compared to the previous year. The company is growing rapidly despite the overall economic backdrop and a difficult year for the technology industry. Also, with the acquisition of all Imageware’s assets, including projects and customer base, we have solidified our position in North America’s biometric and digital ID market.

This year, we plan to expand our partner base globally, continue investing in our technologies and platforms to ensure market leadership in digital identity, biometric matching, and contactless biometric capture. We aim to secure more national-level projects in markets such as Telecom, Fintech, Banking, as well as National ID projects and other initiatives launched by Governments and Enterprises, aiming to replicate our success in doubling revenues in 2024.

To build on these ambitious goals and fuel accelerated growth, we have launched an additional funding round, offering an opportunity for investors to acquire an equity stake in the company and share in our success.  Interested parties can get more details by contacting Rob Haslam, our Chief Strategy Officer.

TECH5 brings innovation backed by solid technical support that allows our customers to rapidly launch their ID-based programs. This is a key differentiator that is meeting the changing demands of the ID and biometrics market.

Link to media coverage

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It may be difficult to remember, amidst international expansion on the heels of a major asset acquisition and deals to deploy its technology all over the world, that TECH5 is a business built with a social purpose. The name TECH5 is derived from its goal of creating technology for inclusion.

“We founded TECH5 with the goal of developing inclusive technologies that facilitate the participation of everyone in society in government programs and enable them to access their benefits. Our aim is to help bridge the gap between the developed and under-developed countries,” says Co-founder and CEO of the company Machiel van der Harst.

The company says its technology falls into four offerings, consisting of contactless capture, biometric identification (including deduplication), digital ID issuance, and verification and authentication of a digital ID holder, or any other citizen or customer of a government or a business entity that uses TECH5’s technology.

Co-founder and CTO of TECH5 Rahul Parthe tells Biometric Update that the expansion of TECH5’s portfolio with the T5-Digital ID brings the vision of a biometrics as an enabler for inclusion to the other side of the lifecycle of an identity: “Once you’re issued an identity, how can it be used by anybody in society?”

Parthe and the rest of the executive team see decentralized digital identities as the way of the future and sought to align their approach with the standards in development.

“How do we fit into this ecosystem where everybody is moving towards the W3C digital identity world – decentralized digital identity?”

The company arrived at the T5-Cryptograph, which in W3C terms is an identity wallet which stores digital attestations and claims in a way that can be electronically read and verified. TECH5’s digital ID stored in a T5-Cryptograph is currently “very close to compliance with the W3C requirements,” Parthe says.

The difference is that TECH5’s digital ID is purpose-built for non-ideal environments, meaning use offline and without a personal device, while also supporting peer-to-peer transactions. Such “non-ideal environments” are still very much prevalent worldwide. “To properly implement a fully compliant identity wallet you don’t need all those (capabilities),” Parthe explains.

“Now when you add that to, let’s say, a decentralized digital ID concept which is compliant with W3C, you make a very powerful solution. Not only for people, but also the governments. Because now they can issue a credential that is not only W3C compliant but also extends the reach.”

If a country decides to implement W3C-compliant infrastructure, TECH5 can provide an additional option for a credential that is not device-bound.

Real-world implementations expanding

The partnership with ZKTeco and PassiveBolt provides an example of TECH5’s biometric T5-Cryptograph being deployed in the real world as a W3C-compliant digital ID. T5-Cryptograph and biometric technology are integrated into an app that hotel guests use for room entry.“The implementation itself now enables people the comfort that none of their information is going to be stolen or lost, it’s only used for the purpose of the transaction,” Parthe explains.

The initial implementation is now live with 80 hotel rooms, and the partners are looking to expand the technology throughout the hotel industry. Parthe says the importance of the application for TECH5 is in its demonstration of the technology in a novel application.

“As TECH5, we’re not focusing explicitly on access control business; it’s just one of the use-cases. This concept can be applied to a national citizen registry and implemented as an ID which you can use for financial transactions or any other use case.” There are tens of Digital ID implementations in TECH5’s portfolio, including the recently-announced Student IDs in DRC, Gun permits in Colombia.

Accordingly, the company’s contactless biometrics are being deployed to the field in various applications, says Head of Sales Ameya Bhagwat. They are drawn from around 50 target markets and verticals, he says, encompassing national ID, foreigner IDs, student IDs, payment authentication and more.

TECH5 relies on partners to develop end-to-end solutions, however, and is therefore continuing to invest in its partner network to unlock new markets, Bhagwat says.

“From a sales point of view, we are looking at locating our teams and offices where we see the most traction,” Bhagwat explains. “So, Middle East and Africa is definitely one of them. We are expanding in Europe, with the presence of the team in Portugal, now, and we are also looking at the Americas with the recent Imageware asset acquisition. And we continue to consolidate our position in the Asian market. That’s the home market for us.”

Taking biometrics in a different direction

As TECH5’s partners develop end-to-end solutions, the company, as a core tech provider, is focusing on the “race to zero error in non-ideal conditions.” That means it must work on inferior infrastructure, with lower-quality data.

“AI is coming to the rescue,” Parthe says. “What we are also learning is you don’t have to stick to the traditional biometrics. There are other modalities that can be extracted from the information that you collect anyways.” A picture of a hand, for instance, can be used for contactless fingerprint biometrics.

This kind of direction also differentiates TECH5 from other ABIS providers offering finger, face and iris modalities. TECH5 is a challenger in this space.

As an ABIS and digital identity provider that entered the market when the law enforcement ABIS market had already matured, TECH5 offers its matching technology in large part to support other sectors, like civil registration. TECH5 is already involved in national-scale projects.

“These are technologies in which efficiency is proven, not only in real-world projects, but some of the largest in the world,” Strategic Advisor Rob Haslam points out. “These are national level programs managing hundreds of millions of identities.”

Potential implementations, therefore, are as varied as countries. This makes the company’s partner network particularly important.

“At the end of the day, when we talk about a specific use case and a specific geography, we believe that the best approach to addressing customer problems is partnering with companies who have the local knowledge, and the capability to implement it,” Bhagwat says.

A vision for the future of digital ID

TECH5 recently completed a review of its five-year strategy, which Haslam describes as “essentially built on top of the belief that digital ID is the future of the biometrics industry. So, everything we do plays into digital ID in some way or another.”

This is why TECH5 is in the unusual market position of selling an ABIS and a credential engineered to support W3C standards and decentralized identity, that can be fully electronic or paper based. However, TECH5 also plays in the law enforcement market, especially in the U.S. – with its portfolio of newly acquired products and customers.

“There is a very subtle but fundamental difference in the approaches of how biometrics are used today versus what we envision,” Parthe says.

In TECH5’s system, biometrics is the key that controls access to the individual’s claims and the data that supports them. Explaining that vision will require TECH5 to share knowledge more actively with the market, says Head of Marketing Yulia Thomas. For many people who could benefit from biometrics, the technology is still associated with either “Big Brother” or unlocking a phone, she points out.

“That needs to be changed. People need to realize and understand the benefits and challenges of the biometric and digital ID market: what is possible today, and what is not, what can be dangerous, and what serves to their benefit. We will be influencing the market, so you will see us speaking much more about digital ID and really sharing our vision. It’s not just marketing we all know; it is thought leadership and influencing.”

Building the company

As this is happening, the team is growing, Haslam says. So is TECH5’s product portfolio and partner base, and it is expanding into new geographies and vertical markets.

The acquisition of Imageware’s assets is a departure from the company’s organic growth strategy, carried out for strategic reasons. TECH5 will integrate those assets and reach an operational basis for the U.S. in 3 to 6 months, according to U.S. Head of Operations Steve Kelly. He says the strategic step is a good move for TECH5 to accelerate its entry into a new market.

The North American market is being kept “somewhat separate internally for this year” in order to integrate it properly, Haslam says.

There will be cross-fertilization of technologies between the North American and global teams, and Kelly says there is good synergy between the assets acquired and those in development.

“There are elements that they had which we didn’t and vice versa.” Kelly believes that the acquired technologies could be added to TECH5’s platform later this year or next year. The integration will not take as long as it might have, Kelly says, since the North American part of the business “came from very established roots.”

“I will at some point get back to doing the full operational role, which is really putting structure into the whole organization, making sure we have common practices and procedures across the organization so we can all work well together,” Kelly foresees.
The route to market through partners gives TECH5 scalability, Head of Commercial Operations Neil Rudeforth says.

TECH5 is building offices in different regions, but “for us to scale properly we have to reach those markets and those customers, and we do that through our partners,” Rudeforth explains. “So that partner network is really important to us, and selecting and certifying the right partners to work with is critical.”

It is the key to ensuring the company’s technology is used for inclusion. At the same time, TECH5 seeks to “sell to the customers, and then deliver through our partners,” Rudeforth says. “So, there’s an element of taking our partners with us into the projects to understand what the bigger picture is.”
When asked about how closely TECH5’s partners had followed the development of W3C’s DID specification, Rudeforth says there is a big range of experience and understanding among partners. That, in turn, makes the company’s local offices and support important.

Expanding the partner program is Rudeforth’s objective for this year. That means not just identifying partners, but “making sure that we onboard them properly, train them properly, support them properly, not just technically, but with marketing and collateral, but importantly with that thought leadership that you’re getting from somebody like Rahul. Who is leading the thinking on where you can take this technology.”

Case studies of what TECH5 and its partners have done in Ethiopia, for example, help, he says. Those projects are clear examples of TECH5’s mission.

“We are not making a jump from centralized ABIS approaches to this futuristic W3C decentralized ID, which is taking shape,” says Parthe. “What we believe is that it’s going to happen, and we are taking very pragmatic steps towards that.”

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TECH5 is a Gold Sponsor of Identity Week Amsterdam 2023, which takes place on 13-14 June at the RAI, Amsterdam. 

Q&A provided by TECH5 with Co-founder and CTO, Rahul Parthe.

TECH5 is a team which combines 300+ years of experience in biometric and secure credentialing programs design and execution, including research and development of biometric algorithms.

All our technologies across three biometric modalities – face, fingerprint, and iris – are developed in-house with traditional and, most recently, based on AI/ML approaches. TECH5’s fingerprint and iris matching algorithms are among the fastest in the world, according to the latest NIST evaluation reports. These algorithms result from years of research and new approaches in building algorithms. For example, the new fingerprint matching algorithm submitted by TECH5 to NIST PFT III, rated one of the fastest and rated l as one of the most accurate in the world, is based on a combination of AI (Artificial Intelligence)/Machine Learning and proven traditional approaches. This combination allows for higher matching speed and improved accuracy of the technology, which results in a reduced server hardware footprint and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). TECH5 also leverages its relationship with customers and academia (CITeR) to further enrich its domain knowledge and databases for training and testing.

TECH5 target markets include both Government and Private sectors. What use cases in the private and public sector have you delivered recently?

Some of the latest use cases include implementation of identification and verification, as well as Digital ID technologies for elections, physical and electronic permits, national ID, foreign resident ID, student ID, eKYC and digital onboarding, and more. For now, we cannot mention the countries and the customers for many of them, as we are yet to make public announcements, but Identity Week will be the first media to receive our press releases once we are ready to publish.

How do you ensure interoperability for example with government systems and data privacy?

TECH5 is a technology provider and not a service provider. We build state of the art biometric platforms that are used in government and private sectors and are part of their end-to-end solutions, which are responsible for data privacy and security. Data exchange between with our platforms and storage is done via open standard protocols and data formats. Data is always stored, maintained, and processed on the customer’s side and not on our side. In digital ID solutions, we enable our partners/customers to implement privacy and security by using biometrics for authentication purposes and some innovative means of using biometrics to act as cryptographic keys.

How can we combat inherent bias in biometric technologies?

We are talking here principally of facial recognition. Bias in biometrics is often a product of training data. In the past, less-than-heterogeneous datasets have resulted in the same sorts of bias, for example on racial lines, as afflict humans when recognising other people. That is to say that algorithms trained on homogeneous datasets can become efficient at matching faces that correspond to their training data but are less so when dealing with data that does not correspond to that on which they were trained. This is similar to how we humans are better at recognising faces within our own racial or other groups (for example age).

The way to overcome this is to train algorithms on as wide a range of input data as possible. However, this has led to some providers training their algorithms on publicly-available images scraped from the internet but which have not necessarily been sourced either ethically or with consent. The short answer, then, to overcoming the biases you refer to, is to ensure you train an algorithm on as wide a dataset as possible, but one which has been sourced through a consent-based process. TECH5 actively invests in acquiring consent-based datasets with wide demographic and ethnic distributions from commercial sources and also via academic participations.

In addition, we would always advise anyone designing a biometric program or process to ensure, where possible, that they use blended modalities where possible. For a national ID program, for example we would usually recommend a government consider implementing its project based on all three modalities of face, fingerprint and iris; potentially also adding other modalities such as voice.

What excites you about speaking at Identity Week Europe in June? What topics will be high on the agenda to discuss?

In our industry, today two main topics are high on the agenda – contactless fingerprint capture using mobile devices, and digital ID.

During my presentation, I will be talking about Decentralised Identity, latest trends, technologies, and their role in our future.

Is TECH5 innovating the future of biometrics and what do you hope to get from Identity Week?

TECH5 is an expert in the field of biometric technologies, innovating to realize the digital IDs of the future. We are innovating in biometrics and digital ID to address the current limitations when it comes to bridging digital divide, ease of use, privacy, security, and reducing total cost of ownership. Biometrics doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but is there to serve a purpose, which is all about identity. We believe that the future of biometrics is about Digital ID, when an identity is fully owned and managed by its holder and is biometrically verifiable and inclusive.

We are innovators at heart and are continuously investing in research and development of our core biometric technologies for face, fingerprint, and iris capture and matching, as well as biometric platforms based on these technologies, to provide the market e market globally with best-in-class products. We are also innovating in the field of making biometrics play a key role in digital identity by deriving cryptographic keys from biometrics, multifactor authentication in an offline manner, highly accurate but smaller footprint of biometric payload, revocable biometrics, and template protection.

Identity Week is a perfect event for innovators to meet to exchange ideas and inspire the industry with their work, learn from each other and partner to create new technology offerings that will disrupt the market. We are looking forward to speaking at the event, meeting new industry players, as well as old friends and partners, demonstrating our top-tier technologies and platforms at our stand, and launching our latest news.

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The combination of Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and biometrics is the way to meet both the security needs of people, businesses and governments, and the privacy needs of individuals, TECH5 CTO, Chairman and Co-founder Rahul Parthe said during a recent presentation to the European Association for Biometrics.

Parthe, who delivered an EAB lunch talk on ‘Technology behind an inclusive decentralized digital identity,’ was a key system architect for India’s UIDAI, which has enrolled 1.3 billion people, and the lead architect for Indonesian national ID, which has collected 193 million tri-modal biometric enrollments.

TECH5 predicts that more than half of the world’s people will have digital ID within the next few years, but Parthe says the industry must take seriously its responsibility to make sure those IDs are safe and effective. That means interoperable, standards-based, and privacy preserving, which it turns means web3-compliant and decentralized, according to Parthe.

Parthe explained how he conceives of digital ID, inclusive ID, and decentralized ID, and the benefits of each, and outlined the characteristics that digital IDs should have. Offline verifiability, without special devices, and user control are among the necessary qualities, he says.

Tying the web3-compliant and future-proof technology of DIDs to the biometrics all people posses is therefore an important goal for TECH5. Importantly, credential issuance can remain centralized, while verification is decentralized, whether through blockchain or otherwise, like through a Github-style database.

Enabling peer-to-peer interactions removes any single point of failure, and eliminates outage scenarios, according to Parthe. Barriers to coverage and scalability are avoided.

The digital wallet is one of the most important factors in creating a good decentralized ID, because in contrast to a smartcard running an applet, it is W3C-compliant and costs less. The other major factor is governance.

Parthe moved on to TECH5’s vision for inclusive digital ID, and argued that it involves something different than putting an existing credential on a mobile phone. The biometric needs to be part of the credential, he argues, and presentable in digital or physical form.

The role of TECH5’s contactless biometrics in the credential lifecycle, from issuance to verification, is explained. The embedded biometrics also restrict access to the credential, preserving privacy security.

The system, he notes, is dependent on the use of biometrics not just for matching, but as encryption keys. This is a growing trend in the industry, Parthe says, because it allows revocation of credentials, which is challenging with traditional approaches.

He then presented TECH5’s collaboration with ZKTeco and PassiveBolt for the security industry as an example of an implementation compliant with the W3C DID Core standard.

Read this article at Biometric Update

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Contactless fingerprinting has reached the stage in its maturity of laboratories pioneering independent testing from biometrics developers at the forefront of bringing the technology to market. BixeLab’s report on the matching performance of  Tech5’s contactless fingerprint software shows the accuracy is making its deployment suitable for some use cases, BixeLab Founder and CEO Ted Dunstone told  Biometric Update in an interview. 

The video call also included Tech5 Research Scientist Vishesh Mistry and Vice President of International Marketing Yulia Thomas in a discussion about the report and the state of the art in contactless fingerprints. 

Tech5’s contactless fingerprint technology has reached the point of practical usefulness for certain applications, the test results indicate.  The report shows it delivered a false non-match rate (FNMR) of 5.8 percent at a false match rate (FMR) of 0.54 percent in a test matching contactless probe images against contactless reference templates. 

“As it’s maturing, it’s going to need a lot more independent validation to make sure that the claims of vendors are meeting reality,” Dunstone says. “So, I think there will be a need for a lot more testing to be done.” 

How the test was developed and conducted 

For the small-scale, initial test, BixeLab set out to match contactless fingerprints against a reference database of contact fingerprints, and another one of contactless prints. BixeLab enrolled all ten fingerprints from 26 people for the contactless-to-contactless evaluation, and 27 for the contactless-to-contact evaluation. The prints were considered separately, with no fusion or associated identity. 

This means “each fingerprint considered as a unique identity,” Mistry explains. “The fundamentals remain the same, regardless of the modality,” for  testing any biometric, Dunstone says. It needs to be meaningful for the stated end purpose of the technology, have the right amount of statistical significance, and cover the claims being made. Tech5 had already developed its Android and iOS applications, so there was not a lot of back and forth between the company and the lab as the test was being set up, Mistry says. He and Dunstone agree that the process of integrating the technology with the test system was fairly straight-forward, due to the requirements of the application. 

Ease of use for layman was a “main requirement” for many Tech5 clients, Mistry says. The image is captured by the user framing their fingers against oval shapes, with the app giving feedback on distance and other factors. BixeLab found that Tech5’s contactless fingerprint technology delivered a 5.2 percent FNMR at an FMR of 0.02 percent when matching against fingerprint templates captured with contact-based scanners. 

Maturity tests 

These results show the technology has reached the point of practical effectiveness – at least in lab settings. 

For next steps, “there’s a need for wider-scale testing to demonstrate efficacy in field situations,” Dunstone says. 

Many of the potentially valuable civil use cases for contactless fingerprints involve enrolling or matching people far from central offices and digital infrastructure. 

“Demonstrating utility in those challenging environments is perhaps one of the next frontiers of the independent testing,” Dunstone speculates. 

Mistry says that anecdotal evidence from field tests performed by police in the UK suggests the technology is ready for those tests as well. 

“They were actually very happy, because even with those bad lighting conditions or with actual human beings who had no idea of the app and were using it for the first time, even for them it was very easy and fluid,” he says. “All they had to do was make sure that the fingers are positioned correctly, and once you do that, you have a very good output fingerprint image.” 

 In the meantime, standards for contactless fingerprint capture are in development. Standards take a long time, but “there’s certainly a lot of discussion around contactless fingerprints and what standardization processes are required,” says Dunstone. 

NIST confirmed the interoperability of contactless fingerprints with contact-enrolled templates in 2021. 

Current and future applications 

BixeLab’s test provides evidence for generalized accuracy under reasonable acquisition conditions, Dunstone explains. 

Mistry says it shows that even contactless to contactless fingerprint accuracy is good at this point, just not as good as contactless to reference templates captured with contact systems. Both types of matches are also rapidly becoming more accurate. 

“Within a few more years, we’re very confident that contactless fingerprint matching will be at par with contact matching,” Mistry says. 

As that process unfolds, Dunstone says, it is important to check the claims being made, as in any new area. 

Comparing contactless fingerprints to contact-based ones aligns with law enforcement uses.

For now, an appropriate use case is to ramp up to contact comparison in the case of an apparent near-match. 

At the same time, making research results available helps to make sure that the user community is aware of what is different from contact fingerprints. 

“You can’t just throw out your contact stuff and just move everything to contactless,” Dunstone cautions. “What this shows is the technology is very promising, it’s got some great use cases, but just like everything, it’s important to know how it can be applied or where it should be applied.” 

Highlighting appropriate and not-yet appropriate applications for a given new technology is one of the key values of testing, he says. 

Over time, Mistry sees a “plethora” of applications. Thomas notes that there are “way more applications” where contactless fingerprinting holds potential in civil ID than law enforcement. 

Many companies are already using the technology, she says, and “waiting for their opportunity to announce it.” Mistry says Tech5 also has interest from government clients, and points out that the FBI is planning to research contactless fingerprint technology, with an eye towards future deployments. 

For civil ID applications, contactless fingerprinting can complement other modalities, and in the longer run, Thomas says it could be used in any application where face is used today. Stored on Tech5’s  digital ID cryptograph, it can be used to prove an individual’s assertions about ownership, qualifications, or a whole range of identity-related areas. 

“Our contactless capture was first born with this idea,” Thomas says. 

The road to realizing such lofty ambitions is dotted with more tests, for Tech5 and other developers of contactless fingerprint biometrics. 

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The frequency of cyberattacks is constantly increasing and they are only improving, especially since the rapid digital transformation left companies with additional vulnerabilities, such as employees using their personal devices and networks.

Unfortunately, many users are giving up security for the sake of convenience – using a few similar passwords for every site. That’s why passwordless authentication solutions, such as biometrics, are a necessity for many businesses and could ensure having less attacks.

To learn about identity management, biometric authentication, and its benefits, Cybernews invited Rahul Parthe, the Co-Founder, Chairman, and CTO of TECH5 – a company that provides identity management technologies and products.

How did TECH5 originate? What would you consider the biggest milestones throughout the years?

TECH5 was founded in Geneva, Switzerland by a team of experts with a combined 100+ years of experience in the industry. TECH5 originated not only out of the need to innovate in the field of biometrics, but also to ensure that any and all members of the society, at the national or local level, would be able to obtain and use biometrically secure digital identities. In other words, TECH5 focuses on inclusion, and in fact, our company slogan, “Technology for Inclusion,” reflects this mission.

Our biggest achievements have been the development of in-house inclusive technology platforms based on all three biometric modalities – face, fingerprint, and iris – for which we also own the IP. We have also been successful in deploying them in some of the world’s largest programs. Our innovative approach to the digital ID concept, which includes a unique architecture and platform, and works in the digital and physical realm serves every step of the identity lifecycle irrespective of the availability of digital infrastructure or digital skills.

Can you introduce us to your TECH5 platforms? What are their main features?

TECH5 offers several technologies and biometric platforms that facilitate contactless biometric capture with mobile devices for face and fingerprint modalities, identification, verification, and authentication, as well as the issuance of a digital credential.

The TECH5 algorithms that underlie our recognition technology are based on domain-specific AI/ML-based approaches that achieve high accuracy for both identification (1:N match) and verification (1:1 match) with a lower hardware footprint compared to traditional approaches. TECH5 algorithms are trained on diverse databases, and as such, the algorithm remains invariant across different nations, ages, and genders.

The flagship offering of TECH5, T5-Digital ID, combines our latest technologies to ensure uniqueness using biometric deduplication, issuance of a reusable credential that can be issued to a citizen’s smartphone and verified against its owner biometrically in an online or offline manner. T5-Digital ID generates a T5-Cryptograph – a high-density digital container that can be stored on the phone or printed out using regular printers for presentation. It can be verified offline using just a smartphone. A T5-Cryptograph contains a compressed facial image of the holder, biometric templates of the face and fingers, and substantial biographical data. Data in T5-Cryptograph is protected by triple-level encryption, including PKI.

Finally, we would like to introduce our latest innovation – T5-AirSnap – a fully contactless biometric capture technology powered by AI and deep learning for face and fingerprint biometric modalities. This technology allows to capture, package, and send face and fingerprint images for identification or verification using only a smartphone, reducing dependency on purpose-built devices.

In your opinion, which types of organizations should be especially attentive to implementing biometric identity verification solutions?

Simply – all of them. Biometric-based identity verification, if implemented properly, is already proving to be the most secure, frictionless, and privacy-friendly approach. The use cases vary from the general population in the lowest tier of the society accessing their basic needs, such as government subsidies, to private sectors, such as banking and fintech. They are also used in security-related use cases like access control.

At the same time, in a world where identity is moving away from the physical documents and is becoming increasingly digital, online, and mobile, a solution is needed that can ensure citizens’ trust in the organizations that collect, store, and access their data and frictionless usage.

We at TECH5 believe that individuals require a digital identity solution where biometric data binds the digital credential to the holder when verified, where that data stays with the holder, where private means private, and where the holder controls what data to share under what circumstances. We need to ensure that the safeguards we put in place are fit for purpose in this new world where your identity can be verified at a distance, passed between devices, checked online, and so on.

Our offering, T5-Digital ID, is built for the world where, when biometric-based identities can live on smartphones, every other smartphone is potentially a reader (a verifying device), and where citizens, banks, government agencies, retailers, law enforcement, and so on, can all verify the parts of your identity that they need without necessarily having to access data they do not need. Verification takes place in real time, against the holder, biometrically, whether the holder is physically present, on the phone, or online.

How do you think the pandemic affected the cybersecurity landscape?

The global impact of the pandemic has led to the accelerated development of new technologies and solutions that led to rapid digital transformation. One of the most popular use cases was allowing many businesses to leverage the huge advantages of digital onboarding, eKYC, and remote authentication. As a result, eKYC has come into even sharper focus and regulators have thrown their support behind digital onboarding to ensure financial transactions are possible. The move to eKYC has transformed onboarding from a tedious, costly, and bureaucratic process to a streamlined, optimized, and quick process.

Equally important to keep in mind is that the onboarding process is also a time when a business is most vulnerable to fraud. Until the eKYC process is complete, online interactions are literally conducted with “strangers”. Indisputably verifying that an individual is who they claim is therefore vital.

A smooth, fast, and efficient digital onboarding process, such as that proposed by TECH5 is no longer a luxury, but a vital element for growth and the retention of the customer base. TECH5 offers a state-of-the-art solution that will make real the ability to keep our identity locked within our own person, thus allowing us to navigate the new reality of a predominantly digital world with complete confidence. The technology allows for the creation of the right size solution for any organization, maximizing the inclusion of any individual with effortless, affordable, and secure AI-driven intellectual property across 3 biometric modalities.

What are the most common methods threat actors try to use to bypass biometric identity verification measures?

Currently, the face is the most widespread biometric being used. For a 1:1 match, an image of a person’s live face is captured and compared against the image stored in the database, for example, on the mobile device. We are all aware of how easy it is to find one’s face on the Internet. To avoid someone using such faces found on the Internet, liveness detection technology is used together with biometric matching technology to avoid spoofing attacks by users, making sure that the presented face is real. The most common variants of attacks are the usage of silicone masks, photos, and videos presented to the camera to bypass biometric identity verification. Now that we can capture very good fingerprints using mobile cameras, fingerprint matching, which was the old favorite, is gaining traction. And guess what, you cannot find one’s fingerprints on the Internet!

Besides quality Identity & Access Management solutions, what other cybersecurity measures do you think every company should implement nowadays?

I am sure we all agree that everything we do today revolves around identity and systems have to ensure that only authorized identities are able to use the systems. That said, there are various aspects of the system that should be considered from a security perspective.

As the foundation, we should ensure that the identity of every user/customer/employee is unique, every system should have a biometric deduplication technology (1:N match).

Furthermore, in order to avoid fraud, it is imperative to have objective proof at the time of enrollment and authentication that the person being identified is alive and that the matching is not occurring against photos, screen displays, video, and 3D masks. These approaches optimize the security of the identity.

The other most important aspect is to implement decentralized identity systems such that they do not create the so-called honey pots for hackers. Ideally, if everyone carries their own ID and has control over who can authenticate, the attack vectors are reduced significantly. State-of-the-art encryption technologies should be implemented to not only achieve security but also privacy. Such consideration in design reduces the burden of cybersecurity safeguards required.

There are developments in the space of matching in encrypted space like FHE.

However, despite the best efforts and sophistication of any organization, cyberattacks still happen. As a result, it is equally important to be cyber resilient. The concept of “cyber resiliency” has recently emerged as it has become obvious that traditional cybersecurity measures are no longer sufficient to protect against continually evolving cyberattacks. As such, every organization must have the ability to prepare for, recover, and respond to a cyberattack. In the case of a biometrics-based system, this would also mean the ability to revoke the store biometrics and reuse them without having to re-enroll the population.

In general, in addition to identity, access control, encryption, and detection, organizations need to implement both a formal information security management program and a risk management program, which include incident response management, training, continual improvement, and both internal audit and external certification.

As for personal use, what security measures can average individuals take to prevent their identity from being stolen?

There are so many things that people can do today that can help prevent the theft of their identity – everything from changing your passwords to two-step verification, signing up with an identity protection service, and opting for biometrics-based verification factors. We also recommend refraining from putting personal information on the Internet, especially biometrics.

We at TECH5 believe that the single greatest protection you can afford your identity is to store it in such a fashion that it cannot be accessed without the holder’s “biometric authorization” (the real person’s face or fingerprint, for example). In this way, the data remain private and unusable by an unauthorized party, and any authorized verifying party only has access to an individual’s data when they are granted permission.

Furthermore, we believe that the owner of the identity should be able to differentiate or segregate the use of their information such that different verifiers can only access certain parts of the data. For example, a bartender could gain access to an “over 18” confirmation but no other data, a car rental company could gain access only to a license number, validity, and outstanding infraction information, but a law enforcement officer could be granted access to the entire record. These features not only give individuals greater control over their identity but ensure greater security by giving the holder ultimate control over the information shared. Because we believe in this approach, to protect digital identities of the future, we created T5-Digital ID that is linked to its holder biometrically and helps to protect the identity from theft and unauthorized usage.

What do you think the future of identity and access management is going to be like? Do you think the use of biometrics is going to take off?

Biometrics is the most secure way for identity access and management – it has skyrocketed and is here to stay. No doubt that in the future, we will witness new and ingenious methods to increase the sophistication in the way in which biometrics will be used to render them even more secure to maintain control over our identity.

We believe in the Digital ID approach, in decentralized digital identity owned by an individual and linked to its holder biometrically.

Would you like to share what’s next for TECH5?

We will continue innovating and evolving the technologies for contactless capture with mobile phones, artificial intelligence, and machine learning-based biometric matching technologies, as well as disruptive digital ID issuance and verification with granular control over consent-based claim verification.

All our matching platforms are multi-modal: we have three biometric modalities – face, fingerprint, and iris – developed in-house, and looking for opportunities to develop and implement other biometrics. We invest in enhancing our technologies to meet our internal mission of race to zero error and to ensure that top-notch technologies are available for our partners across the world. We believe that with our innovative digital ID technology and artificial intelligence-based biometrics, we will be able to serve most of the people on this planet.

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