INTRODUCTION

In the last decade, biometrics has become one of the main topics and a key technology for many government and enterprise projects. But what is it that makes biometrics irreplaceable when there is a requirement to protect data, grant access to authorized users, secure and issue national documents to their rightful holders, and more?

In this white paper, we will explore the early development of biometric programs, the significance of biometrics in foundational ID programs, the utilization of biometric technologies for public safety, and how biometric-based Digital IDs can increase inclusion by providing biometrically verifiable credentials to all, including those without access to digital infrastructure.

CRITICAL ROLE OF BIOMETRICS

Today, biometric technologies are playing a critical role in identity management programs due to their ability to provide fast and accurate authentication and identification mechanisms. In an increasingly digital world, where data breaches and identity theft are constant threats, biometrics offer a robust defense against unauthorized access and fraud. Biometric markers, such as face, fingerprints, palm, voice, iris, and others are unique to each individual, making them highly reliable for confirming one’s identity. This uniqueness eliminates the need for traditional identifiers like usernames and passwords, which can be easily compromised. Biometrics not only enhances security but also streamlines user experience, making it a valuable tool for access control, financial transactions, and secure data management.

Furthermore, biometrics are crucial in addressing the challenges of identity management in large-scale applications. Governments and enterprises are increasingly relying on biometric data to establish and verify the identities of individuals, whether it is for border control, issuing o cial documents as part of National ID programs, or, for example, managing employee access. The speed and accuracy of biometric verification can significantly reduce processing times and errors, resulting in cost savings and enhanced operational efficiency. Biometric identity management is also a fundamental component of modern cybersecurity strategies, as it not only offers an extra layer of protection but also ensures that access to sensitive information and critical infrastructure is granted only to authorized individuals.

Overall, biometrics are indispensable in safeguarding digital identities and enabling the secure and e cient functioning of various identity management programs in today’s digital landscape.

It is also important to mention that identity management systems that utilize multiple biometric modalities, for example, face and fingerprint biometrics instead of relying on a single modality like face, offer a significantly higher level of accuracy for several reasons.

First, combining multiple biometrics modalities reduces the risk of false positives or false negatives, as it becomes exceedingly unlikely for two individuals to share the exact same combination of biometric traits. This multi-modal approach enhances security by making it harder for malicious actors to impersonate someone or gain unauthorized access.

Second, it adds an extra layer of robustness, increasing system reliability, and making it more resistant to spoofing or fraud attempts. The synergy between different biometric modalities can compensate for limitations that each individual modality might have, such as low-light conditions affecting facial recognition. In sum, multi-modal biometrics not only strengthen the overall security of identity management systems but also provide a more dependable and accurate means of authentication.

TECH5 has developed a multi-modal biometric system called T5-OmniMatch, allowing for identification, verification and authentication by face, fingerprint, and iris biometrics. A combination of sustained investment and single-minded dedication to the development of biometric modalities that capitalize on AI has resulted in TECH5’s algorithms being consistently ranked in the top tier of NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) ranking for face, fingerprint, and iris recognition. TECH5’s state-of-the-art, highly scalable platforms serve a multitude of business cases and are already deployed on several continents serving over 1 billion identities.

The post The Role of Inclusive Biometric Technologies in National Level Identity Management Projects appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

INTRODUCTION

Biometric verification and authentication became a part of our lives years ago and are now ubiquitous – they are used on our mobile phones for access to data and services, for interactions with our banks and governments, at airports, offices, and more.

The most widespread biometric modality is, of course, face. Many organizations, along with the companies supporting them with technology, focus primarily on face biometrics because it has become the standard, and because all ID documents include a photo. Whether in an onboarding scenario or for later authentication, what could be easier than taking a selfie?

Despite the convenience, speed, and matching accuracy offered by face recognition, achieved thanks to the latest biometric algorithms powered by artificial intelligence, there is still a significant risk of fraud. This risk persists, despite the application of facial liveness detection technologies, due to the use of deepfakes and other spoofing techniques by those attempting to gain unauthorized access to data. Face images can be hacked, replicated, spoofed, and otherwise misused, primarily due to the widespread availability of millions of photos online, including on social media.

How can we protect an identity against deepfakes? What other measures can governments and enterprises implement to ensure the security of identity data? In this article, we will explore the importance of multi-modal biometric matching and digital ID systems for identity verification and examine its impact on accuracy and efficiency in the fight against fraud and the protection of human identity.

WHY ARE MULTI-MODAL BIOMETRIC MATCHING SYSTEMS ESSENTIAL FOR IDENTITY VERIFICATION AND DIGITAL ID?

Using a range of biometric modalities offers a higher level of flexibility and security for digital onboarding and verification processes, as compared to a single modality. Users can undergo verification using a selected modality suitable for the use case or a combination of modalities, increasing the level of assurance for the verifying party.

Multi-modal biometric matching systems are essential for identity management and verification because they provide a higher level of accuracy, security, inclusivity, flexibility, and convenience for the user compared to single-modal systems. Let’s discuss each aspect separately.

Accuracy

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.

Security

What makes multi-biometric systems more secure than facial recognition technologies alone? There are several factors, including a lack of openly available data for the mass
creation of fake (non-face) biometrics, and difficulty in forging more than one modality at a time.

Multi-modal biometric systems are 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 more and more essential to not rely only on face biometrics for the future of
identity verification and Digital ID, allowing us to protect the identity at every stage of its lifecycle.

Flexibility and Convenience for the User

Verification using several biometric modalities offers a higher level of flexibility and convenience for users by harnessing the unique advantages of multiple biometric characteristics. This approach ensures a robust and user-friendly authentication experience and accommodates diverse scenarios, environmental conditions, and user preferences, as individuals can choose the modality most suitable for the given context.

Inclusion

The post The Role of Multi-Modal Biometric Matching Technologies in the Future of Identity Verification and Digital ID appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

This white paper describes the partnership between MOSIP and TECH5, and technology offerings based on the MOSIP platform powered by TECH5’s biometric and digital ID technologies, as well as provides information about the National ID projects using the platform.

MOSIP as an Initiative 

MOSIP® (Modular Open Source Identity Platform) is a global open-source middleware platform developed for National Foundational ID programs. It is designed to help organizations and governments implement a foundational ID system that provides citizens with unique (digital) IDs that can be securely authenticated, and that facilitates the effective delivery of authentication services for public and private entities, such as healthcare, education, and social security, among many others. 

Having learned lessons from Estonia and other advanced digital ID systems as well as Aadhaar India UID, the largest identity management program in the world, IIIT-B built the MOSIP platform, which can now be easily deployed around the globe. Nations can reuse MOSIP freely and build their own inclusive ID systems without having to develop technology from scratch.

The MOSIP ecosystem consists of partners from among biometrics and digital ID technology vendors, as well as the governments it they work with. It also increasingly includes testing labs, academic institutions and other non-profit organizations. 

Twenty-seven countries have visited the MOSIP experience center so far, and several more have engaged with MOSIP in other ways. Eleven countries are at various stages of MOSIP adoption, and the education and testing programs are advancing rapidly. 

The Modular Open-Source Identity Platform has made a major impact on the Foundational ID systems of countries in Asia and Africa and is actively approaching more countries. Today, 93+ million people are registered on MOSIP-Based Systems. 

TECH5-MOSIP Relationship 

The first biometric matching technology integrated with MOSIP 

TECH5 Group is a technology company and innovator in the field of biometrics and digital identity management. TECH5 was the first ABIS vendor that recognized MOSIP’s unique value proposition for an open-source National ID solution driving Foundational ID. As a result, 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. In addition, TECH5 was able to make use of its expertise in building large-scale National ID solutions based on the company’s proven experience in this field to allow MOSIP to present a tested and ready-to-use solution with integrated biometrics to the Executive Committee and International Advisory Group of MOSIP® on August 6th, 2019. 

“Our 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, whose mission is aligned with TECH5. We invested in the integration of our platforms with MOSIP and are actively working for the project because we very much believe that our combined solution will provide high value to countries that are establishing identity management systems.”

– says Rahul Parthe, Co-founder, Chairman and CTO of TECH5. 

The first Digital ID technology integrated with MOSIP 

With the ABIS already integrated, in 2021, TECH5 went a step further by integrating the T5-IDencode issuance platform – a part of its T5-Digital ID offering – with the MOSIP foundational identity Platform, including biometric enrolment of a person as well as the issuance of secure and private digital IDs with data sourced from a National ID database. 

Today, all TECH5’s matching and Digital ID platforms have statuses of MOSIP-Compliant and MOSIP-Integrated products.  

TECH5-MOSIP Integration
 

All biometric matching and digital ID issuance platforms are fully integrated with the MOSIP Foundational Identity Platform and are available for adoption b Governments. 

Any country adopting MOSIP can leverage the fully integrated innovative technologies of TECH5, such as T5-OmniMatch ABIS – an automated biometric identification system, as well as T5-Digital ID – the technology offering that combines the contactless biometric capture and digital ID issuance and verification platforms, with minimum integration efforts. 

T5-OmniMatch ABIS  

MOSIP can be used together with the T5-OmniMatch ABIS platform for deduplication during the registration process, multi-factor verification and authentication for service provision. The platform can also be used to assess the quality of biometric images during registration using T5-OmniMatch BioSDK for finger, iris and face recognition. Integrated technologies provide a platform with strong matching and enrolment capabilities.  

The combined solution of MOSIP and TECH5 is designed to avoid vendor lock-in. T5-OmniMatch ABIS is built on an open architecture, giving governments maximum flexibility to change technology components along with changes in strategy without having to re-build the entire ID system and without the need to re-register its citizens. 

T5-Digital ID 

Implementing a digital ID using the MOSIP platform in combination with TECH5 technologies for biometric matching and Digital ID issuance and verification will allow governments to improve the ID issuance process by reducing the cost and increasing the speed of issuance, as well as streamlining the logistics and management of the ID lifecycle. 

TECH5’s digital ID retains the same ID verification functionality whether it is purely electronic or printed during the personalization of an ID card. Furthermore, reading and verification of the digital ID can be performed in a completely offline manner, making both specialized/purpose-built devices and internet connectivity unnecessary. In this way, digital ID provides flexible and unique advantages to Governments, allowing them to build a foundation for Digital ID in a fast and efficient way together with a consequent reduction in hardware.  

The MOSIP platform is designed to help organizations and governments implement a foundational ID system that provides users with unique IDs. With the integration of the T5-IDencode platform with MOSIP, these unique IDs can not only be issued in a secure digital format, but can also be securely authenticated, thus facilitating the effective delivery of services such as healthcare, education, and social security, without compromising a citizen’s data.  

The MOSIP platform integrated with T5-Digital ID also allows for enrolment and deduplication prior to issuing a digital ID. The T5-OmniMatch ABIS component is used for deduplication services during the enrolment process to verify that a user does not already exist in the database under a different name and to ensure that the issued digital ID is unique. 

The credential issuance functionality of T5-Digital ID will significantly increase privacy and security during verification. This is because the digital ID is issued in the form of a secure digital container known as the T5-Cryptograph, which enables biometric authentication using TECH5’s NIST top-ranked face and/or fingerprint recognition algorithms. Furthermore, the data in the T5-Cryptograph is readable only by a verified authority, and only after the identity holder authorizes the reading and verification of its contents. 

The total solution enables each user to have full control over their private and personally identifiable information. The credential issued by the Government can be stored on the user’s phone or kept in printed format and used for biometric verification against the holder. This consent-based mechanism afforded by the new solution empowers each user with the ability to seamlessly self-authenticate anywhere in the country and access a wide range of Government and Enterprise services. 

“MOSIP believes in innovation. Paperless secure credentialing and enablement of offline identity verification is a strong use-case to demonstrate, especially from the point of view of inclusion and privacy. We appreciate TECH5’s initiatives in embracing breakthrough open-source technology like MOSIP”,

– says Krishnan Rajagopalan, Head of Country Implementations, MOSIP. 

MOSIP is also planning to integrate T5-AirSnap Finger – a patented and fully touchless fingerprint capture technology for mobile devices, designed to increase the scalability of fingerprint-based solutions and reduce dependency on costly purpose-built hardware that traditionally drives costs in large-scale projects. To showcase the technology, MOSIP is planning to create a new section within its marketplace for promising technologies that are still being developed and evaluated.
 

Some of the TECH5-MOSIP Implementations  

Today, digital identity and biometric matching systems based on MOSIP and TECH5’s technologies have been rolled out in Ethiopia, and pilots are running in several other countries.  

Ethiopia Foundational ID  

Type of the project and stage: Phase 1 of production underway.  

TECH5’s technologies: T5-OmniMatch ABIS for finger, face and iris matching, T5-IDencode for Digital ID generation, T5-BioSDK for clients and 1:1 authentication, T5-Manual Adjudication clients.  

Number of citizens enrolled today: 1.4 million Fayda IDs 

Project description: In 2021, NIDP Ethiopia partnered with TECH5 to implement biometric technologies and digital ID for the Ethiopian National ID program. TECH5 has become an international partner and technology supplier for the National ID Program of the Ethiopian Government Entity (NIDP Ethiopia). NIDP Ethiopia has implemented a pilot program with TECH5 biometric matching platform for face, fingerprint and iris modalities for biometric identification, de-duplication and enrollment, as well as T5-Digital ID for issuance and authentication of foundational IDs of residents. This pilot program has at its core an IDMS (Identity Management System named Fayida) based on MOSIP.  

Individuals participating in the pilot program were enrolled by providing their biometric and demographic data. Face, fingerprint and iris images are captured, checked for quality using the TECH5 SDK, and then de-duplicated through a 1:N check against data in the National ID system using the TECH5 identification system (T5-OmniMatch ABIS) that is integrated into the MOSIP platform. TECH5 has also deployed the T5-IDencode platform integrated with MOSIP for Digital ID generation. Once enrolled, an individual receives a digital ID which can be presented in an electronic or printed format and verified completely offline using an authorized verifier application on a smartphone. 

All data collected, stored in the NID database, and/or published in the ID credential is limited to the minimum data required to identify an individual. All data remains secure under NIDP and is owned by the individual who has sole and total control over how the data is managed and used. The Ethiopian Identity program is working in compliance with international principles of data privacy, minimal data retention, inclusion and consent. Current working principles are made public here. 

“This entire program is aimed at creating and implementing a Foundational Digital ID system for Ethiopia at the national level, the culmination of which results in the enrolment of millions of consenting individuals as part of national priority use-cases in the banking, insurance, education, residential services and other sectors. We are glad to partner with the TECH5 team, who have demonstrated innovative solutions in the biometrics industry.”

– comments Yodahe Zemichael, Executive Director of the NID Program. 

In 2022, Ethiopia implemented its first Foundational ID project with TECH5 technologies as part of its pre-launch phase by deploying a production system. Leveraging all benefits of the innovation, such as the deployment of an open platform like MOSIP customized by local experts to fit the country’s context, NIDP Ethiopia plans to ease the issuance of Digital ID and minimize the reliance on smart cards, ease of distribution and usage of new IDs, avoid the need for expensive hardware for the ID verification, and provide authentication for both online and offline scenarios. 

Citizens are enroled in the National ID system by providing their biometric and demographic data. After the enrolment, digital IDs are generated using the T5-IDencode platform integrated with MOSIP. Once generated, a digital ID is sent to its authorized holder – the citizen – and can be presented in an electronic or printed format and verified completely offline using an authorized verifier application on a smartphone or tablet. All data remains secure under NIDP and is owned by the individual who has sole and total control over how the data is managed and used. The Ethiopia National ID program is a perfect example of centralized issuance and decentralized verification.  

“We are delighted to announce that the first million digital IDs for Ethiopians will be issued over the coming months. With TECH5 as a partner, we are now ready to provide the next-generation digital IDs to the benefit of the residents of Ethiopia and move steadily towards our goal of providing a Digital ID to the entire population of 100 million people in Ethiopia.”

– Comments Eyob Alemu, Technology Director of the NID Program. 

The use-cases for digital IDs in Ethiopia, as well as in other countries, are endless: banking, insurance, travel, education, residential services and more. And now, a digital ID holder does not even need a smartphone – his or her ID is securely stored in the digital container – a T5-Cryptograph – that can be simply printed and verified biometrically offline, against its holder. This application is at the forefront of inclusive digital identity worldwide. 

TECH5 continues to work with MOSIP on enabling governments with technologies for inclusive National and Digital ID systems.   

To learn about other implementations, or test TECH5’s technologies, contact us: 

sales@tech5-sa.com

The post Foundational ID Programs Using the MOSIP Platform Powered by TECH5’s Biometric Matching and Digital ID Technologies appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

Introduction

According to the biometrics sector growth and analytics firm, MarketsandMarkets, the global Digital ID market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 20.4% and reach USD 70.7 billion over the next five years. In fact, in a few years, over 50% of people on this planet will have some form of digital identity. But the main question is how should the technology solution be designed to make digital ID decentralized and address security, privacy, and inclusion, be interoperable, and compliant with the standards?

In this article, I will share my vision and approach to creating a web3-compliant Digital ID. This approach allows to facilitate online and offline verification of a Digital ID, issued in an electronic or printed format, and bind an identity holder to their digital ID biometrically.

What does Inclusive, Decentralized Digital ID Mean?

First, let’s look into the terminology and agree on what inclusive, decentralized digital ID mean. Every industry expert will give a different answer to it.

In our context, a digital ID is an identity-proofing instrument that can be used to negotiate between the service provider and an identity holder to conduct a transaction. The service provider can verify the identity and provide services online or in-person. A digital ID can be electronically issued but it does not mean it is an electronic copy of a physical document, it should be a unique digital credential.

We at TECH5 believe that digital ID should be inclusive. It means that everybody in the society should be able to use their digital ID and participate in the government programs, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, income, age, or physical capabilities. A person does not need to have access to infrastructure, any specific devices or any special skills to utilize their digital ID.

And the last important term I would like to mention is decentralised ID. It means that there should be no need to access a central database for verification of authenticity or ownership of an identity. It will also allow identity holders to fully own and control their digital IDs and decide what information to share with verifiers.

What should Digital ID be?

There are various answers to this question, and those depend on the use case, the users and other aspects. The digital ID providers need to ensure that most of these requirements are met one way or another.

One of the most important of these aspects is inclusion. Technology solutions are often designed for the developed world, that automatically excludes 6-7 billion people on this planet, and this needs to change. But how to ensure that the digital ID is inclusive?

Verifiable offline

One of the key requirements for an inclusive digital ID is to be verifiable offline. A true, fit-for-purpose digital ID cannot rely on only being able to be verified/authenticated online. It needs to work online and offline. The identity credential needs to be with the Claimant, not in the cloud, not in a data centre somewhere, and be verifiable without recourse to an online resource. An identity may need to be verified in a desert, out at sea, up a mountain, in a jungle, underground, but also in times of natural disaster or outage of communications services.

If the credential stays securely with the ID holder, and the facets needed to verify it from part of the credential itself, this means that, even where there is ubiquitous connectivity, no query on a remote database is needed to verify identity. This means that the risk of hacking is much reduced since there is no “open channel” to the database, used by legitimate verifying parties, for criminals to exploit.

The “no honeypot” aspect of digital identity is not to be confused with the database holding the “root identities” (for example a national database, a health service’s ABIS, a bank’s customer database or similar). These will not go away, but the crucial point is verifiers should not be needing to hit them millions of times a day to verify someone’s identity; it is only needed to create the credential.

Verifiable Without Special Devices

The other important requirement for a modern, inclusive digital ID is to be verifiable without purpose-built devices. The constraints of paper and plastic identity documents when it comes to verification are commonplace and known and have hampered the proliferation of many national projects the world over: these documents rely on a variety of specialized (and often costly) devices which need to be procured in the thousands (or even millions) in order to allow verification to happen:

• Dedicated smart card terminals (including border systems), and associated communications infrastructure
• Dedicated barcode scanners
• Dedicated fingerprint readers

A balanced digital ID should allow verifiers to leverage existing infrastructure – devices such as mobile phones and tablets, which only need to be authorized to download the relevant reading software and permission levels.

Controlled by the Holder

One of the common constraints of traditional identity documents is that, when proving one facet of one’s identity, we usually have little choice but to disclose all the data on the document.

This can have serious consequences: from the hacking of vast troves of individuals’ data because it is collected and stored by negligent organizations, through to real-world examples such as in the US where bar staff have been caught harvesting address data from driving licenses presented as proof of age and later stalking the women concerned.

A well-designed digital ID should allow the user to control what data is presented in what scenario, and only the data necessary for the verification required. Data should be segregated and protected by different digital certificates according to the user profile of the verifying party.

Easy to Use

Frictionless usage is one of the keys to inclusion. A digital ID should be designed and implemented in a way that is should not matter who in the society is using it. The usage should be as easy as presenting a physical credential followed by simple steps to grant access to data. There should be no need to remember complex steps and password. This can be achieved using biometric verification of the holder against their digital ID.

Scalable

Digital IDs should be designed in a way that it is easy to issue, verify, revoke and update. The existence of a ready-made reader infrastructure like mobile phones gives a digital identity program instant scale.

When thinking about inclusion, or simply the need to get a physical credential out to millions of people in a short time period, then having a credential which is not substrate-dependent brings even more flexibility. The ability to provision credentials to users’ devices over the air becomes critical.

W3C Compliant

As the world becomes digital, concerns over privacy and security are taking center stage. Combining the principles of W3C VC and biometric technology allows us to find the sweet spot for achieving security and privacy establishing trust. It is crucial as privacy laws are already being implemented and will be enforced with heavy penalties for noncompliance. This approach has other benefits, such as regulatory compliance, fraud reduction, intrusion resistance, ease of use and interoperability.

Decentralized

There are several benefits in a decentralised digital identity. Firstly, there is no single point of failure. Interactions are peer-to-peer and do not depend on a centralized system so there is no outage scenario. This also facilitates high scalability and unlimited coverage. Secondly, there is no tracking of interaction. Unlike centralized or federated ID systems interactions are peer-to-peer and hence stay between the holder and service provider. Thirdly, it reduces the risks. Since there is no need for centralized access for identity verification, the risk of data breaches goes down significantly.

What technology is required?

Binding digital ID to its holder

To verify a digital ID against its holder securely and accurately in an offline manner, the digital ID should allow the binding of the identity holder to the credential. Biometrics is the most popular way to achieve identity binding, tying the identity to its owner and not the device.

With the availability of biometrics contactless capture and verification technologies using mobile phones, it is now possible to verify, for example, a face or fingerprints of an ID holder against the biometric templates stored in their digital ID.

Decentralization

Today everyone is used to a centralized ID, where an issuer is in control of issuance as well as verification. In this case an identity holder depends on an identifier in order to be authenticated to get access to a certain service.

In case of a decentralized identity there can be two scenarios:

• Decentralized issuance as well as decentralized verification
• Centralized issuance (an authority issues a credential), and a decentralized verification

When issuing a digital ID, an issuer puts their public key in a commonly accessible database. Then the credential is sent to the holder and can be stored in a self-sovereign ID wallet – a digital identity wallet or a physically printed digital ID. When an ID holder wants to access any service, a verifier, by using public keys that are commonly accessible, can verify that the credential is not only issued by the right authority, but also that it belongs to its holder.

Blockchain technology can be used to store the aspects of the credential that are then referred to by verifiers. Or it can be any kind of a distributed ledger like a database.

As we all know, smart cards are a form of an identity wallet. Smart cards with applets can be considered electronic physical identity wallets, but they come at a cost and are not W3C compliant. An identity wallet should allow a holder to store a verifiable credential in some form. What is also required is implementing the W3C standards for portable, self-sovereign PII and attestations with technologies that meet the needs of the masses or use case.

Inclusion and protection

Digital ID needs to work for everyone. To address the digital ID requirements of national-level programs, foundational or functional ID, a digital ID should be w3c-compliant, as well as be usable in offline scenarios. Our vision of an inclusive digital ID is a collection of verified attributes about a person, derived from a trusted source, linked to the person biometrically, rendered in digital form, such that the identity of the person can be confirmed, and any or all of the attributes can be authenticated, by an authorized third party, by digital means.

Biometrics and data encryption play vital roles in this process. The biometric data needs to be part of the credential itself, and where the credential is in visual format so that it can be presented in electronic or printed form. In this case the identity document can be verified against its holder with no need to access a central database. Biometric verification using a mobile phone also replaces a need to remember passwords or have any specific digital skills – an ID holder only needs to present their face or fingers to a verifier for biometric matching against the document.

Encryption is required to protect data stored in the digital ID against theft and misuse. An encrypted identity wallet with demographic and biometric data stored in it, issued electronically, or printed in a card or a paper, and biometrically verifiable against its holder in an offline manner may become an inclusive decentralized digital ID of the future.

About the author

Rahul Parthe, CTO, Co-Founder and Chairman of TECH5 Group

Chairman of TECH5 SA, Rahul Parthe oversees TECH5 product and technology strategy. Rahul was the key system biometric service provider architect of UIDAI program which has enrolled more than 1.3B identities till date. He is also the lead architect for Indonesia National ID that now holds 193 million tri-modal enrollments. Other key organizations include, Identix, L1 Identity Solutions, Securimetrics, Morpho and InterBio.

The post The Future of Inclusive Digital IDs: Technology Behind Decentralised Digital Identity appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

This white paper describes how the addition of technology to verify the authenticity of a visa photo can be used in immigration and non-immigration scenarios, such as work permits or student visas, to increase confidence that the visa is genuine, without specialized tools.

Introduction

The use of falsified or fraudulent visas continues to be a major concern for governments and organizations around the world. Such concerns are only exacerbated by heightened conflict situations in certain parts of the world, increased economic migration and pressures in certain countries to increase worker numbers in specific professions, or revenues from overseas students.

The potential consequences of visa fraud can be severe, ranging from security risks to economic losses. In this paper, we will explore the benefits of verifying visa photos in immigration and non-immigration scenarios as a way of increasing trust in the document’s authenticity. We will provide an overview of the visa verification process, including the various traditional security features and techniques used to prevent visa fraud. We will also examine visa verification in different scenarios, highlight potential challenges and considerations, and offer recommendations for future action, especially to add trust to the process.

Visa fraud might be fraud involving a visa that was issued legitimately being used (or re-used) by another person in a different passport, or it could be a fully falsified visa where the entire document, including the personalised data on it, has been counterfeited from scratch.

Overview of the visa verification process

Visas at immigration

Since much visa issuance is a closed-loop process at the immigration level, there is an assumption that the process (visa verification at the border) – is foolproof: the immigration officer often knows in advance from the system who is arriving; the visa applicant has been pre-vetted, both on issuance and, for example, before boarding a flight; the visa has already been linked to a passport; the border has systems in place to check arrivals, usually biometrically; etc.

However, fraud at this primary inspection point does still happen, for example if the internet is down or is unavailable at remote border posts. The process is especially vulnerable to fraud where countries’ systems are not advanced in terms of linking the issuance process in the country of origin to the database used on arrival. Here, there is no foolproof link between the visa and the passport, and the immigration officer is relying on the authenticity of the physical visa presented in an arriver’s passport, a process that remains open to fraud.

An immigration officer – an individual trained in document inspection – may well have confidence in being able to establish the identity of the traveller via a passport check, especially a biometric passport (an “e-Passport”) using available systems, but not necessarily any foolproof way of ensuring the visa is genuine and has not been altered. In a sense, this potential gap in the process only serves to exacerbate “false acceptance” of altered and counterfeit visas down the line once the traveller has entered the country.

Visa checks in-country (non-immigration)

Less attention has been paid, however, to potential applications for visa verification in non-immigration scenarios such as the presentation of work and residence permits and student visas. Such visas support a host of rights and benefits, from extended residency to the ability to rent or buy property, the right to study, work, take out credit and so on.

This may well be because, once in the country, the visa is more readily assumed to be genuine and unadulterated because:

A. the person presenting it is already in the country and therefore assumed to be there legitimately.

B. It is usually stuck into a passport which (often because most passports are biometric passports these days) confers legitimacy and adds to the idea that it must be genuine.

It is also, though, an unavoidable fact that, once through immigration, the visa is going to be checked not by experts but by people with no specific training in document or identity security. At its simplest level, this can be the HR department of a company making a visual inspection of a visa as proof of right-to-work, or the administration of a university taking a copy to establish a student’s legitimate status as an overseas student. No easy way – much less a foolproof one – of knowing if the visa is genuine or that it was issued to the person presenting it, has been available until now.
An additional factor for those presenting and verifying visas is that, for many, such as migrant workers, a visa may be the only legitimate form of identity that a person has in the host country. This needs to be presented in a variety of ID-verification scenarios and eKYC (electronic “know-your-customer”) situations, not least of them access to banking, and payment/stored value systems in the host country, but also running to healthcare, family support, law enforcement, SIM registration, toll and bill payments, remittance services, access to benefits and so on. In such eKYC scenarios, a visa will need to be captured electronically, with little assurance that it is genuine and rightfully that of the presenter: it therefore becomes not only a crucial choke point in the system, but a key target for fraud. This can cause huge problems for legitimate visa holders, as well as promoting other forms of fraud and third-party abuse when people go unbanked. Strong visa security therefore has serious implications for inclusion as well as for security.

Traditional methods of protection

Most visas take the form of a self-adhesive, security printed label which is personalised either by overprinting with a desktop laser or inkjet printer before being stuck in the passport. The visa label itself will usually contain a host of printed security features to prevent fraudulent photocopying or reproduction; it could additionally be printed with “currency style” intaglio ink with a raised feel for added tactile security. It may well also include solvent-sensitive and other inks or additives in the paper to prevent alteration of data (for example, date of expiry) or official stamps applied to it.

Additionally, visas can have a host of other features such as holograms and other devices applied to increase their physical security, right up to a protective tamper-evident “photo-patch” over the portrait area or even a laminate protecting the whole surface of the document, although these are less common. However, many visas fall a long way short of the physical security barriers that would typically challenge even an inexperienced fraudster. Some, indeed, have none of this physical security whatsoever, relying instead on devices such as QR codes.

While all the physical security methods outlined above can undoubtedly raise the security of a visa and its issuance process, and add confidence for anyone verifying them, the fact is that the vast majority of those checking a visa have no training whatsoever in such methods, and simply don’t know what they are looking for. Unless a visa being presented is glaringly falsified, they are forced to take the document at face value and assume it is genuine, with the potential security, economic and other risks mentioned earlier.

There is a new facet of visa issuance which brings its own set of challenges at the verification stage: the adoption by some countries of fully-electronic or “e-visas.” Such visas may carry codes and references that are accessible and verifiable by immigration authorities and other government agencies, but may not be easily verifiable by the private sector. Furthermore, such e-visas often make use of QR codes which, while flexible and convenient, are often a link back to a data source which can easily be spoofed, manipulated and exploited (there are even examples of fraudsters creating entire false “immigration department” websites to lend legitimacy to fraudulent visas being checked via QR code). This has implications for eKYC and other identity checks as outlined above, where the visa may be the main form of identity usable by an immigrant, as well as for the entities doing the verification.

TECH5 has sought to overcome the challenges inherent in checking visas in a variety of scenarios, using its biometric and data encryption technologies, whether the visa is in printed form or fully electronic.

A new way of adding trust to visas

As mentioned, most visa fraud involves either creating a false visa from scratch or adulterating an already-issued visa with new data. The first is generally much more complicated, and therefore the majority of visa fraud revolves around adulterating an existing document in favour of someone not entitled to it. Ironically, the presence of sophisticated anti-counterfeit devices can actually serve to encourage adulteration of genuine documents rather than outright original fabrication.

Such manipulation almost always necessitates altering or replacing the photo of the original holder. To counter this threat, TECH5 has released a product that is able to protect the document against both forms of attack on the portrait photo (alteration and substitution). This product is called T5-FaceLink: a printable high-density 2D code generated on issuance and applied to the visa at the time of personalization, which serves three primary purposes:

1. To protect the photo from alteration or substitution, and

2. To guarantee to an untrained person, without any specialized equipment, that the document is genuine.

3. Optionally, to protect the other (text) data from alteration: text or numerical data in addition to the face template can equally be encapsulated in the T5-FaceLink code and verified for alteration as part of the same process.

How it works

1. When issuing the visa, a face template of the face in the visa photo is generated and printed close to the portrait photo on the visa, at the same time as the photo, in the form of the T5-FaceLink code, which is typically approximately only 1-2 square centimetres in size.

2. Using a mobile application, a verifier can biometrically verify the face in the printed portrait against the template stored in the T5-FaceLink code. The verifying party simply opens the app, holds the phone’s camera over the area of the visa containing the photo and the T5-FaceLink code, and the app will confirm within seconds if the photo matches the template in the code.

If the photo matches the template in the T5-FaceLink code, the verifying party knows that:

  A. the visa is genuine, as the code could not have been printed on a fraudulent visa as the code generation software is only available to the issuing authorities;

B. the visa was issued to the person whose photo is printed on it: if the photo has been altered in favour of someone else, it will not match the template stored in the code;

C. any other data that has optionally been encoded into the T5-FaceLink code (for example name and date of birth) has also not been fraudulently altered.

Electronic copies of visas can also optionally be rendered on a smartphone and still offer the same verification opportunities without the need to present a passport.

Additionally, processes for issuance of e-visas can be made more inclusive and secure by providing a document containing the T5-FaceLink code for subsequent assertion of identity rights/verification. This could even be issued in an email or messaging service (pre-travel or on arrival) for printing by the holder themselves.

The verification:

1. Can be made available by the government agency via access to a mobile app (iOS and Android) and provided either free of charge or paid-for.

2. Can be made available through the relevant app stores via the agency’s website; it can be made publicly available or released only to accredited verifying parties.

3. Can be integrated into other apps, workflows, and systems (for example HR onboarding, student enrolment, landlord rental platforms), via an SDK.

4. Works totally offline: not only is an internet connection not required, but this means there is no database of visa holders which needs to be consulted for verification: all the verification data necessary is stored in the T5-FaceLink code printed on the visa itself.

5. Can go a step further by adding the ability to perform a live biometric face match of the visa holder against the photo.

6. Can be integrated into eKYC or remote onboarding scenarios.

Conclusion

Until now, it has been difficult and cumbersome, if not impossible, to verify that a visa is genuine, unaltered and belongs to the person presenting it. This is all the more an issue in normal everyday situations where the visa holder has already passed immigration and the visa is being assessed and verified by non-experts without the training or resources to judge its authenticity.

TECH5’s T5-FaceLink brings an elegant, economical, secure, fast, and foolproof way of overcoming these challenges. It adds an authenticity and tamper-proof check at the issuance stage such that anyone verifying the visa later can do so with speed, accuracy and certainty.

The post Adding Biometric-based Trust to Printed Visas and Related Documents appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

This white paper describes how adding a biometric-based digital security feature can be used to secure the photo on an identity document from alteration or substitution. It can be used in various scenarios to increase confidence that the document is genuine and belongs to its holder without any specialized tools.

Introduction

Biometric identification and authentication systems have become the norm across nearly every vertical business market, particularly as a result of the COVID pandemic, which made remote interactions a necessity for authentication and verification to enable individuals to access services and data. A perfect example is the opening of a bank account without visiting the bank branch.

The implementation of Digital ID systems is the next step on the way to digital transformation and inclusion. According to the analytics firm, MarketsandMarkets, the global biometrics market is expected to grow from USD 42.9 billion in 2022 to USD 82.9 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 14,1%. Not surprisingly, because many digital ID solutions use biometrics for verification of the ID holders, the Digital ID market is also expected to show exponential growth: the market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 20.4% and reach USD 70.7 billion over the next five years.

Clearly, biometrically-protected Digital IDs will become the new reality, bringing additional security and linking the identity to its holder.

BUT THE TRANSITION FROM PHYSICAL DOCUMENTS WITH A PHOTO AND DATA PRINTED ON THEM TO PURELY DIGITAL BIOMETRIC IDS WILL NOT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT; THE TWO WILL COEXIST FOR MANY YEARS TO COME.

Printed ID documents have several levels of protection to prevent alteration and forgery. They will contain printed security features, holographic images, security printing and other devices to protect against alteration and counterfeiting. The addition of chips to documents, especially contactless chip in passports and ID cards has strengthened the protection, allowing for electronic storage and retrieval of verifiable images and personal information. But even these are not immune to alteration and photo substitution, especially when used in a remote or non-electronic reading situation.

Today, physical ID documents are increasingly used for digital onboarding and access to online services. The fraud has morphed to take advantage of the inherent weaknesses of physical IDs which were not designed for such online and remote use cases.

The Global Problem

The use of falsified or fraudulent documents continues to be a major concern for governments and businesses around the world. To understand the size of the problem, it is enough to just look at the statistics: according to an independent financial services 2022 research report, identity fraud losses in the U.S. alone involving direct contact with victims totalled $28 billion and affected 27 million consumers. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that identity theft and related fraud rose nationwide in 2021, with fraud complaints increasing 19 percent for the year and financial losses from fraud rising 77 percent from the previous year. PwC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey 2022 found that 51 percent of companies with global revenue over $10 billion experienced fraud from 2020 to 2021, with over 25 percent losing more than a million dollars.

FRAUDULENT DOCUMENTS WITH PHOTO SUBSTITUTION POSE SIGNIFICANT RISKS AS THEY FACILITATE VARIOUS TYPES OF ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES, INCLUDING IDENTITY THEFT, FINANCIAL FRAUD, IMMIGRATION FRAUD, AND OTHER FORMS OF DECEPTION.

By replacing the original photo with that of another individual, perpetrators can exploit the credibility of the legitimate document, deceive authorities, and circumvent security measures. This can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive information, financial resources, or restricted areas, ultimately compromising the safety and well-being of the person whose identity has been stolen, as well as the integrity of the organizations and institutions affected by the fraud. Furthermore, these fraudulent practices undermine the integrity of official identification systems and can hinder law enforcement efforts, posing substantial threats to societal safety and security.

Using physical documents in a digital world

As mentioned earlier, government-issued IDs have traditionally been secured using physical security features, as well as secure personalisation technologies such as laser engraving. However, fraudsters relentlessly continue to challenge document issuers and verifiers by finding new ways to bypass such measures and replace the photo on the document with a new one.

Often, in the online enrolment scenario, the authentication of the document is only carried out by visual software (OCR/OFR – Optical Character Recognition/Optical Feature Recognition). Various tools available in the market attempt to use a mobile phone camera to detect physical security features on a card, but these are not foolproof and require ideal lighting conditions to work correctly. These systems also do not protect against the alteration of data on a real document and therefore photo substitution and document forgeries are a real problem.

Smart cards

In many countries, identity cards contain a chip, whether contact, contactless (NFC – “Near-Field Communication”) or dual-interface. However, aside from the cost of such smart cards and their associated infrastructure, there is a danger that those relying on them for identity verification fall into the trap of assuming them to be foolproof because they are digital and presumably protected by cryptography, digital signatures and other technologies. But fraudsters have a convenient way to bypass the system. Remote onboarding or transaction verification via an app with integrated NFC reading requires users to have the latest, NFC-enabled phones. Fraudsters, using older smartphones, will take a selfie and an image of the document with a replaced photo that match perfectly and allow them to fool the software.

The solution

The answer to solving the fraud problem involving use of documents with swapped photographs is in linking the photo on the document to the document itself at the stage of document personalisation.

TECH5 has developed T5-FaceLink – a biometric-based security feature that can be printed on a document alongside the photo – as a “digital security feature.” This feature is a high-density code containing a biometric face template generated from the original photo. Verification consists of capturing the two together; the software then compares the template in the code with another template generated on-the-fly from the printed photo, all in real time.

T5-FaceLink provides:

A mechanism to authenticate the photo on an ID document with a face template of the original holder stored in the feature using a standard mobile phone.

The ability to provide government service providers and eKYC providers with a mechanism to validate and detect alteration of a document in a remote/online environment using standard mobile phone technology, even from a picture of the document.

The ability to authenticate a credential in offline scenarios without having to provide an online database service for document authentication – thereby reducing the risk of data-breach and data theft.

T5-FaceLink can also be used to “upgrade” existing ID documents by adding the personalised feature, without the need to replace documents, designs or personalisation systems, or indeed add a chip in order to include biometrics. This enables governments to address the needs of modern ID documents without having to go through significant infrastructure replacement and cost increase.

How it works:

1. When issuing the document, a face template of the face in the document portrait is generated and printed alongside the portrait photo on the document, in the form of the T5-FaceLink code.

2. Using a mobile application, a verifier can biometrically and automatically verify the face in the printed portrait against the template stored in the T5-FaceLink code. The verifying party simply opens the app, holds the phone’s camera over the area of the document containing the photo and the T5-FaceLink code, and the app will confirm within seconds if the photo matches the template in the code.

3. In a remote onboarding/verification scenario, the software will verify that the photo has not been altered as described above,and so the user cannot substitute their own photo to match against the selfie.

Conclusion

Existing document security features are not sufficient in preventing photo fraud in offline and online onboarding and verification scenarios. T5-FaceLink helps detect and prevent the use of fraudulent documents with swapped photos. Verification of a document’s photo against a biometric template of the same face, printed on the same document, increases trust in the document’s authenticity and prevents various fraud scenarios.

The post Link the Face: Biometrically Protected Identity Documents appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

The Hype Around AI Reaches Fever Pitch

In the last few months, AI (Artificial Intelligence) based technologies and products such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard have been hot topics across the media. AI, which has seen exponential development and growth over the last several decades, has recently reached a zenith in terms of hype and ubiquitous use that includes industry, science, medicine, education, and government to name a few. AI is being touted as the next technology that will revolutionize the world and has been compared to the technological innovations initiated with the rapid rise in internet companies during the dotcom boom, the advent of virtual and augmented reality, and the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Today, many experts believe that AI is set to be the next generational disruptor with some predicting its effect to be ground-breaking in several applications and fields that may even lead to the redundancy of entire professions.

We at TECH5 recognize that AI is an invaluable technology that can be used to great effect to optimize a wide range of activities, which in turn will speed progress, help professionals in their daily work as well as aid researchers like us to develop innovative technologies. However, AI can also be used with different levels of success, as more than just using some AI approach and standard methods for training may be required to achieve spectacular results.

Today, it is already clear that many technology companies claim that they are using AI in their products, and with Big Tech gearing up for a new AI arms race, more and more players will feel the need to sprinkle AI references into everything they do to appear relevant. Unfortunately, this will quickly lead to the devaluation of belonging to an AI league, blurring of positioning, and confusion in the market.

In this article, we will explore the real impact of AI on the biometric industry, as well as share our vision and explain how TECH5 has long been using AI and Machine Learning (ML) to develop best-in-class contactless capture and matching algorithms across various biometric modalities.

AI in Biometrics

The application of AI for the training of biometric algorithms is not new. The industry started using AI in the early 2000s, when researchers began developing algorithms for face recognition that incorporated ML techniques such as support vector machines (SVMs), allowing computers to learn and recognize faces with increasing accuracy. A decade later, the industry incorporated the use of deep learning-based neural networks for extracting information-rich features from faces. This move towards resource-intensive but accurate algorithms was mainly due to the availability of large-scale training datasets and compute devices such as Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). Following the success with face recognition, researchers started exploring the use of AI for fingerprint recognition – a much more niche domain.

DESPITE ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE AND OPEN AVAILABILITY OF NEURAL NETWORK MODELS, NOT ALL BIOMETRIC ALGORITHMS AVAILABLE ON THE MARKET PERFORM AT THE SAME LEVEL.

Optimal performance of a biometric algorithm is contingent upon the utilization of specialized domain knowledge for the creation of robust features, bias mitigation using appropriate training strategies, as well as ensuring viability for deployment. Therefore, when analysing any vendor’s technology, it is critical to consider technical aspects, such as matching speed and recognition accuracy that have been determined in international tests/evaluations, the size of biometric templates that can affect hardware footprint and total cost of ownership, along with the crucial but often underestimated legal aspect, that is, the collection of biometric data for training of neural networks.

In addition, it is crucial to ensure that biometric systems are developed and deployed ethically and transparently, with appropriate safeguards in place to protect individuals’ data given the ongoing concerns about the potential misuse of AI-based biometric technologies and data, as well as the privacy and security implications of collecting, storing, and analysing large amounts of sensitive personal information.

Data for Training

The ability of a neural network to learn and accurately match faces, fingerprints, irises, and other biometrics is made possible through training using large amounts of diverse and representative data for training. The origin of these data has been the subject of much scrutiny and at times controversy. In terms of face recognition, for example, the internet has a plethora of freely available sources of face images – like social networking sites, and other channels. As a result, some companies scrape these face images without any concern as to the legality of the use of the images, and certainly without any official consent from the owners.

In reaction to these practices, several countries are starting to create and implement new legislation to protect citizens’ biometric data and rights, and to provide guidelines for these data’s fair and legal use. Nevertheless, the fact remains that each company must develop its own ethical policies outlining how they choose to use images responsibly and obtain biometric data for training fairly and legally.

Why not Every Biometric Technology and Platform is Equally Accurate and Fast

There are three main factors that contribute to the speed and accuracy of biometric technologies.

First, obtaining consent-based biometric data for training is expensive, and there is minimal sharing of these data across industry and academia. The lack of access to these kind of data leads to the creation of unreliable and poor-performing algorithms which can be heavily biased towards certain genders, races, or ethnicities.

Second, the development of a high-performing algorithm that will be used in, for example, an Automatic Biometric Identification System (ABIS), and is capable of matching potentially billions of people with the same high speed and recognition accuracy requires a Research and Development team that has biometric domain knowledge and deep expertise in the design, development, and implementation of such a system. This kind of experience can only be gained through hands on creation of national-scale projects.

Lastly, the development of best biometric algorithms requires constant investment in research, testing, and improvements. There are several independent internationally recognised biometric testing laboratories and institutions, such as NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), BixeLab, iBeta, and others, where vendors can test their technologies to ensure quality and understand their position in the market.

Leading the Path of Innovation: AI-Based Biometric Technologies of TECH5

TECH5 is an international technology company founded by biometrics industry professionals who have played major roles in some of the world’s largest biometric projects, including the India Aadhaar project and Indonesia’s National ID. Our team combines 500+ years of experience in biometric and secure credentialing programs design and execution, including research, development, sales, and marketing expertise.

FROM ITS INCEPTION, THE COMPANY HAS FOCUSED ON DEVELOPING DISRUPTIVE BIOMETRIC AND DIGITAL ID OFFERINGS BY APPLYING AI AND MACHINE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES.

Our sustained investment in and single-minded dedication to developing biometric modalities capitalizing on AI brought TECH5’s technologies to the top of the NIST rankings and led us to create a suite of novel products and platforms addressing the digital ID management challenges of the 21st century.

For years, we have invested in AI-based technologies across three biometric modalities – face, fingerprint, and iris, with the goal of developing fully inclusive identification and authentication platforms with a zero-error rate. And we believe AI has a significant role to play in the biometric matching field, serving people and businesses globally in their daily needs, biometrically verifying individuals securely and accurately, providing access to data and services, and preventing fraud.

On the Frontier of AI

Algorithms

TECH5 is committed to ensuring its technologies are highly accurate, robust, and inclusive. Our IP-protected face, fingerprint, and iris matching algorithms are consistently ranked in the top tier in NIST testing, and one of the keys to our success is our innovative approach to data training: to achieve the best results, TECH5’s research team focuses on unique and novel amalgamation of AI/Machine Learning and specialized domain knowledge from traditional methods.

The new fingerprint matching algorithm, submitted by TECH5 to NIST PFT III¹, is rated as the 2^nd fastest and one of the most accurate technologies in the world. This algorithm is based on state-of-the-art AI/machine learning networks infused with fingerprint-specific domain knowledge.

This combination allows for higher matching speed and improved accuracy of the technology, which results in a reduced server hardware footprint and a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for the entity deploying the platform of TECH5. The TECH5 fingerprint algorithm is 400% faster than the next-fastest algorithm in the report, has a 66% lower error rate, and requires only 50% of the memory resources due to the smaller template size.

The result of submitting our fingerprint matching algorithm to the NIST PFT III evaluation proves our claim that AI/NN (neural network) plays a pivotal role in all biometric modalities to make them robust.

Furthermore, TECH5 has developed an algorithm for fast and accurate contactless fingerprint capture that can be performed using a simple camera of a mobile device. The technology allows for accurate biometric acquisition by capturing a fingerprint(s) image(s) with a smartphone’s built-in camera, checking and enhancing the quality of the captured image(s), running a liveness check, and then packaging and sending the data for verification or registration, all within seconds. The process ensures that the data is taken from a real person and that the image(s) are of acceptable quality, suitable for use with legacy datasets, and comply with applicable standards and customer requirements. This proprietary and patent-pending contactless fingerprint capture technology, called T5-AirSnap Finger, incorporates Machine Learning and Computer Vision with novel image processing techniques to bridge the gap between contactless and contact-based fingerprint capture and recognition and eliminates the need for purpose-built devices for the capture of fingerprint biometric data.

Our face matching algorithm is also consistently ranked top tier in NIST evaluations. It was ranked second fastest in the world in NIST FRVT 1:1 and is among the most accurate for face recognition with face masks.

These technologies across all 3 biometric modalities – face, fingerprint, and iris – are used in the T5-OmniMatch ABIS matching platform for National ID-scale projects, as well as in every biometric platform within the T5-Digital ID offering, ensuring inclusion across the globe, and are available for certified partners of the company as part of the flagship capture, identification, and verification offerings.

The iris matching algorithm of TECH5, also a combination of AI and traditional approaches, shows the highest matching speed among all vendors participating in the NIST IREX 10 evaluation².

Data

TECH5 is in a unique position because the company has legal access to depersonalized data for training of its algorithms through partners and projects where our technology is used, academia, and biometric data acquisition.

TECH5 CONTINUOUSLY INVESTS IN MILLIONS OF CONSENT-BASED, DEPERSONALIZED BIOMETRIC IMAGES TO TRAIN ITS AI-BASED ALGORITHMS.

The company is obtaining the necessary rights for millions of images and is regularly training and benchmarking the algorithms using this data.

Access to supersized datasets and expertise of the team ensure that our technologies are not only highly accurate and robust but also inclusive. Furthermore, we believe that only the implementation of ethically trained algorithms can help to develop a transparent and secure biometric market.

Why TECH5 is Different and How it Benefits our Partners and Customers

TECH5 has capitalized on its expertise, knowledge, and access to data for training to develop all three core biometric algorithms based on AI and Machine learning. Not only has TECH5 been one of the first companies to use AI across the three biometric modalities but has also been a leader in combining AI and traditional approaches for training biometric algorithms, which has led to achieving the best results on the market in accordance with NIST testing.

One of TECH5’s goals as a company has been to create a greater understanding within the industry of biometric technologies and its benefits for the users. To that end, TECH5 regularly contributes its expertise and market knowledge as a member of different international organizations such as OIX (Open Identity Exchange), SIA (Secure Identity Alliance), Biometrics Institute, EAB (European Association for Biometrics), and others.

TECH5 works only with certified partners worldwide, which permits us to maintain control over the use of our technologies and contribute to the ethical use of biometrics.

Our high performing algorithms power all of TECH5’s biometric and digital ID platforms, ensuring the highest matching speed and accuracy and lowest hardware footprint among algorithms available on the market.

THE INTEGRATION OF TECH5’S TECHNOLOGIES LEADS TO SIGNIFICANT OPTIMIZATION AND LOWER TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP, WHICH IS CRITICAL FOR LARGE-SCALE IDENTITY MANAGEMENT PROJECTS.

The Future

In the coming years, AI is expected to continue to improve the accuracy, speed, and versatility of biometric systems. AI-based algorithms will be used increasingly more to enhance the analysis and interpretation of currently used biometric data as well as improve innovative biometric modalities such as behavioural biometrics, that are not yet widely used.

The AI-based approaches will also help develop new modalities that are not traditional and work in non-ideal conditions. For example, palm recognition works with low-resolution cameras as it does not require stringent capture requirements like traditional fingerprint algorithms. In addition, the rate of algorithm improvements will significantly increase in the areas where traditional algorithms take years compared to AI-based ones taking months. AI will also allow efficiently combining modalities to create robust and high-accuracy algorithms.

TECH5 will continue to lead the field in biometrics, constantly investing in research and improving our AI-based algorithms and adding new technologies to our portfolio, providing our partners and customers globally with the best-in-class biometric matching and digital ID technologies and platforms.

OUR ULTIMATE GOAL IN DEVELOPING AI-BASED ALGORITHMS IS TO ACHIEVE RACE-TO-ZERO-ERROR ACROSS ALL OUR BIOMETRIC MODALITIES.

The post Leveraging AI to Develop Best-in-Class Biometric Algorithms appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

Introduction

Today, the world’s population hovers at around 8Bn. Of those 8Bn people, only 17% live in developed countries. That’s just 1.3Bn people, meaning that over 6Bn still live in developing countries. In the Western world, people usually take for granted ‘normalized’ technological advancements such as cars, credit cards, computers, and smartphones. While it is correct to assume that the elites in the metro cities of developing countries also have access to these technologies, the vast majority of the world’s population still lacks behind.

With the technological boom, it is very likely that more than half of the people on this planet will have some form of Digital ID in the upcoming years. However, it is highly imperative that the solution should be designed in a way that the identities are decentralized, and that security, privacy, and inclusion are properly addressed.

The next generation digital IDs must reach the next 6Bn, and take into account all foreseeable scenarios, whether for a developed country or a developing one.

In this poster, we will share TECH5’s vision and approach to using a 2D digital storage ID technology for the issuance and biometric verification of digital ID. This approach allows to facilitate online and offline verification of a Digital ID, issued in an electronic or printed format, and bind an identity holder to their digital ID biometrically.

Next-Generation Digital ID and TECH5’s Approach

We believe that the next generation of Digital ID should have the following mentioned characteristics:

• Should include verified attributes about an individual derived from a trusted source.
• Should be biometrically linked to the individual.
• Should be available in both digital and physical forms.
• Should facilitate biometric authentication by an authorized third party.

It is also important for the credential to be in a visual format so that it can be presented either electronically or be printed. The credential should itself act as a secure digital container and thus will be “substrate agnostic”. Being digital in origin, it can also be transmitted entirely electronically.

An innovative Encrypted 2D Digital Storage ID

– T5-Cryptograph

T5-Cryptograph is a proprietary machine-readable code, encrypted and protected on multiple levels to ensure the security of the data stored in it.

This technology can very reliably and conveniently transform any existing document, without electronics, into one carrying a secure digital ID which can be biometrically verified in an online or offline manner.

Digital ID container – what is inside

QR-Code vs T5-Cryptograph

The TECH5’s 2D digital data container may look like a QR code, but it is much more advanced and secure in every way.

T5-Cryptograph stores up to 9 times more data, has multiple level of data protection, allows for data redundancy, and stores biometric and biographical data of its holder, allowing for completely offline verification. T5-Cryptograph can be issued via internet or simply printed on a piece of paper, and will work in the same manner, allowing for verification within seconds using only a verifier’s mobile phone’s camera.

Architecture of a Digital ID with T5-Cryptograph as a 2D Digital Container

This figure depicts the architecture of a Digital ID incorporating the T5-Cryptograph as a 2D Digital Container. New key terms are defined below:

• T5-IDencode – a technology platform for digital ID issuance.
• T5-OmniMatch ABIS – a mission critical multi-biometric identification and verification platform allowing for identification, de-duplication and verification by face, fingerprints, and iris.

AI-Based Biometric Technologies for Contactless Capture and Verification of Digital ID

Contactless Biometric Capture

Contactless biometrics capture technologies can be used for Digital ID issuance and verification. This allows for fast, accurate, and frictionless capture using a camera of a mobile device. Data are captured in a standard format compatible with legacy recognition systems.

The “contactless” benefit of biometric capture is more relevant in the post-pandemic era where individuals want to refrain from touching surfaces.

The captured biometric data can be used for:

• Digital onboarding;
• Verification;
• Offline authentication on a mobile device.

Contactless Fingerprint Capture

Definition: Capturing fingerprint images using cameras on standard phones for matching with legacy fingerprint scanner images or other contactless fingerprint images.

Motivation / the key driving factors:

• Ease of deployment – just download the software;
• Wide range of device options, and easy support (phones);
• Phone penetration (especially in 1:1), almost every qualified user has a phone.

In response to the increased demand for contactless biometric solutions during the pandemic, TECH5 has made its T5-Finger offering contactless, incorporating a neural networks-based fingerprint capture algorithm. This innovation, called T5-AirSnap Finger, facilitates the detection and capture of fingerprints in real-time using the integrated camera subsystem of a standard mobile phone rather than purpose-built devices traditionally used for fingerprint capture. Fingerprints are captured and processed in a standard format compatible with legacy fingerprint recognition systems.

Features

Technological Achievements

• Efficient filtering to ensure high quality friction ridge representation;
• Image processing to ensure image quality like contact-based scanners;
• DPI estimation to scale images close to 500 dpi using standard phones;
• Higher accuracy using depth sensors if available;
• Technology to flatten images of the 3D fingers.

Default vs Optimized Noise Filter

Mobile phone manufacturers tend to implement filtering techniques on images to make them visually good for humans. This hurts fingerprint capture performance.

TECH5 turns off these filters and uses a custom-made proprietary filtering technique that is driven by domain knowledge to produce high fidelity ridge information reducing false minutiae.

Flattened Contactless vs Contact

The other problem that TECH5 solves is to flatten the 3D surfaces. Fingers are 3D objects and hence the ridge density changes as the finger surface curves off at the edges.

TECH5 technology leverages its domain knowledge in fingerprints and implements a technique that normalizes the ridge density as close as possible to a contact print even at the edges.

Benchmarks

• A fingerprint identification experiment was undertaken in which the enrolled gallery consisted of 3 million identities with legacy fingerprints and 210 identities with contactless fingerprints.
• The FNIR@FPIR of 0.1% was 0.89%.
• It was also observed that increasing the background population did not significantly degrade the accuracy.

The Captured Fingerprints be Used for Digital ID Verification (1:1 Matching)

• Matching contactless to contact or contactless to contactless is widely deployed and in use in many countries.
• This is a relatively less complex problem as it is a 1:1 comparison, and matchers can be easily configured for higher tolerance. The possibility for users to retry also increases efficacy.

Learn more about TECH5’s contactless capture offering

Biometrics Matching

Biometric matching refers to comparing two biometric samples in order to decide if they belong to the same identity or not. Algorithms facilitate this by extracting features (or information) from captured biometric samples.

While traditional approaches focused on extracting human-crafted features, we at TECH5 use Artificial Intelligence for several reasons:

• Neural Networks (NN) are Universal Function Approximators;
• Large Dataset + Deep Model = Rich Features.

AI approach for biometrics matching tackles all cons of traditional biometrics:

• Extremely fast feature extraction and matching, utilizing the computing powers of GPUs;
• Small and fixed template size: TECH5’s Digital-ID uses 136-bytes face and 184-bytes fingerprint templates.
• Rich features:
  • Information-rich features result in higher matching accuracies;
• Tolerance:
  • Unlike traditional algorithms, NN-based biometric templates are scale and rotation-invariant.

Combining Traditional and AI-based Algorithms

Biggest requirement of AI-based methods is DATA for training that is:

• Not readily available;
• Constrained privacy laws and IRB approvals;
• NN-based deep features + Handcrafted features:
• NN networks guided by domain knowledge;
• Huge boost in both Accuracy and Speed:
• TECH5’s Traditional + NN Fingerprint and Iris algorithms are the fastest and one of the most accurate in the world, according to NIST evaluations.

TECH5’s Traditional + NN Fingerprint Matcher in NIST PFT III

Learn more about TECH5’s biometric matching offering

Conclusion

Apart from the fact that every individual should be entitled to a Digital ID, it is crucial to recognize that the current generation of Digital IDs needs a major overhaul. A Digital ID should be highly secure, decentralized, and inclusive towards billions of people. To facilitate this, the ID should allow for fast, easy, and cost-efficient issuance along with biometric verification, even in an environment with no internet and no access to central databases.

This is being shown to be achieved by next-gen Digital IDs, such as the T5-Digital ID, which uses contactless biometric capture technologies coupled with secure data containers. With the technology ready to be deployed in many countries, we are confident that such a technology will be a game-changer and be used in a variety of use cases, from verifiable concert tickets to identity documents.

The post 2D Digital Storage and Biometric Technologies for Biometrically Verifiable Digital ID appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

Contactless fingerprinting was one of the hottest areas of biometric development even before the novel coronavirus was discovered in 2019, along with other contactless biometric technologies in general. The reason is because it allows high scalability leveraging the existing infrastructure such as smartphones with internet connection that we all carry. Adoption and thus further development of such technologies only accelerated during the pandemic. The heat was generated by a series of advances in fingerprint image acquisition using conducive mobile phone camera systems, image processing techniques resulting in high accuracy matching performance with legacy fingerprints and systems, widespread adoption, and recognition from standards bodies.

When we talk about contactless fingerprinting, we mean the acquisition and/or verification of fingerprints without placing the fingers on the type of device we’ve all become used to, for example at border control. Until recently, for a number of reasons, placing your finger(s) on such a reader was the only way of properly acquiring or verifying a fingerprint.

The potential for contactless fingerprint capture technology, particularly through mobile phones, includes a complete reconfiguration of the dominant national ID registration and verification model, Tech5 Co-founder and CTO Rahul Parthe tells Biometric Update in an interview.

This reconfiguration would involve the gradual replacement of a whole generation of dedicated acquisition devices for contact-based fingerprint biometrics. Their replacement would require only software and mobile phones, and the same smartphones will also serve as a face capture devices.

“We all carry these awesome computers in our hands,” Parthe explains. “It’s a perfectly packaged hardware device that is ideal for any capture technology. Smartphones are powerful compute devices on the edge, with a nice integrated camera with auto-focus and flash. And now phones also come with multiple cameras which can help with better focus and depth estimation. This allows the users to take photos of their fingers and the software takes care of the rest. I’d just like to point out here that we’re talking about using the phone’s camera to capture biometrics and using a smartphone to take the place of a dedicated reader. We’re not talking about the in-built fingerprint acquisition we’re all familiar with on many devices which is the means of accessing the device itself.”

The recent state of the art

The technology is coming of age: contactless fingerprinting has reached high accuracy as with contact-based biometric systems when using multiple fingers. A preliminary test conducted by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as of early 2020 proved the same.

Its interoperability with fingerprints captured using contact fingerprint scanners has also been confirmed by NIST, informing guidance released by the agency this past June.

Getting to that point has required innovation in capture technology, Parthe explains. Unlike with a dedicated touch-based device, fingerprint images are captured from varying distances, requiring accurate scale correction to be built into the software.

“There is a lot of machine learning going on with the capture itself,” says Parthe. “To detect the fingerprint, and then once you have detected and segmented, you have to convert it into a format that is acceptable to, let’s say, the national ID solution vendor’s legacy system.”

The images must be adjusted to match reference templates captured with contact-based systems, with 500 dpi, greyscale, and specific contrast characteristics. Only then can the biometric data be processed the same way.

Contact-based fingerprint scanners have advanced dramatically over the past decade, according to Parthe, with smaller and somewhat portable devices coming to market with high accuracy. They still involve a significant investment, however, and require a secondary computing device, like a laptop or tablet, further increasing the overall cost. Also, they limit scalability and require maintenance.

The guidance from NIST is also expected to lead to further documentation, and possibly new standards for contactless fingerprints.

A new generation

Prior to the pandemic, contactless fingerprint solutions were already gaining rapidly in popularity among banks and for digital know your customer (KYC) and remote onboarding applications.

“Major use cases are where people would like to verify themselves against a known reference biometric identity of themselves and do 1:1 verification,” Parthe says.

Contactless fingerprint biometrics adoption is now moving from banks to governments.

Governments are highly concerned with keeping costs down, and reluctant to invest in expensive new scanners, but also have a mandate, one increasingly shared by banks, to reach all citizens. Contact-based biometric scanners typically operate in fixed deployments, making it hard to fulfill that mandate. These systems are also often hindered in bridging the last mile to remote citizens or customers with limitations in internet connectivity and other infrastructure.

The technology best suited to meeting those goals, Parthe says, is provided by the mobile device-based approach. The software now provides similar biometric accuracy to dedicated scanners, he says, with convenience and scalability that opens up new applications.

The software solution is easy to integrate and use, he says, and reduced maintenance compared to hardware-based approaches further adds to the cost benefit, which in turn further improves scalability.

“Especially when you talk about contactless fingerprinting, the fundamental requirement is that somebody has a reference database,” Parthe explains, “which is why the governments who have already collected fingerprints as part of their national ID databases are the ones who are quickly jumping on the use of contactless technologies.”

Shortly after this conversation, Ethiopia announced a trial of Tech5’s technology for its national ID system.

The pandemic provided contactless fingerprinting technologies with “a booster for adoption” according to Parthe, due to concern around the “super-spreader” potential of surfaces meant to be touched by many different people, like traditional biometric scanners.

The T5-AirSnap Finger solution, launched by Tech5 in September, provides an alternative through an SDK that can be easily integrated in applications.

The possibilities

Using software and mobile phones removes the barriers that have prevented biometric technology from being deployed in a range of situations, Parthe points out.

“It basically caters to all the needed and good-to-have features that you want in an acquisition technology.”

Parthe would not be surprised to see governments actually using the technology for enrolling citizens in national ID databases in the near future, he says.

As that happens, he predicts contactless technology will soon start to replace contact scanners. There is also a significant development in the field of fingerprint matching using neural network (NN) based algorithms which have higher tolerance for variation in scale and quality. Combination of the two will significantly increase the effectiveness of these large programs making contactless capture technology an easy choice.

Tech5’s contactless fingerprint offering is called T5-AirSnap Finger. Another available contactless capture technology of Tech5 is called T5-AirSnap Face, and the company’s technology roadmap also includes the development of T5-AirSnap Iris – again for use on a standard mobile phone. Also, with voice biometrics capture the most widely available capture modality for mobile phones, they can effectively provide a complete multi-modal biometrics capture solution, Parthe argues.

For national programs that have traditionally involved SLR cameras, iris scanners, fingerprint scanners, laptops and more, in some cases rolled out to chains of remote islands, mobile phones could provide a powerful alternative.

Parthe notes that NIST’s active involvement in defining the potential certification standards shows they believe in the longer-term potential of contactless fingerprint biometrics.

In the meantime, Tech5’s T5-AirSnap Finger is already serving a growing number of customers for a widening range of applications.

Link to media coverage

The post Contactless fingerprinting maturation allows the unification of biometric capture using smartphones appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.

Everyone is aware of large data breaches, hacks, and erosion of trust where citizens’ information becomes either exposed or is stolen outright for criminal purposes. Data can become comprised almost anywhere, including the commercial or banking arena where accounts and passwords are left unprotected or credit card details are passed on illicitly, or in government services where personal identity data is stored. Now imagine 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.

In a world where identity is moving away from the physical documents we have carried for decades 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.

A few months ago, we read that tens of thousands of Australian driver’s licenses (including full images of the front and back of the documents) along with other private data were exposed on a publicly-available cloud service. No one even knows how this happened. It goes without saying that such an act does little to instil confidence in citizens that the government is protecting them from criminals and other malicious actors.

Now, as the pace picks up with the migration of physical driver’s licenses and other documents to mobile versions, the security and privacy of these crucial repositories of people’s identities are in sharp focus. This is all the more important in Australia since the country is leading the way in the adoption of, and enthusiasm for, mobile identities. Now that we are on the verge of these mobile identities taking on the legitimacy of the documents we have been carrying in our pockets until today, 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.

TECH5 builds on its industry leadership in multi-modal biometrics (face, fingerprint, and iris) and leveraging of machine learning and neural networks, alongside industry-standard encryption, to offer a platform for mobile identities that is truly built on security, privacy, offline verification, and protection of personal data.

We built our solution from the ground up by taking the analogy of the physical ID document and asking five fundamental questions related to where identity comes from and what it is moving towards:

1. How can we improve verification that an ID is genuine?
2. How can we enhance the link between the credential and the holder?
3. How can we ensure these technology enhancements are inclusive and not only available to those with smartphones?
4. How can we improve how holders manage and control the privacy of their data?

We then went further and applied all of the above questions to building an ecosystem where a smart card, with the necessary (expensive) reader infrastructure, is not necessary.

It is simply not practical for any verifying party to be an expert in physical security features to confirm that an ID document is genuine each time someone presents one. Even in the case of trained border guards, it is still necessary to understand what a mobile identity solution must offer to give instant assurance that the credential is genuine. Furthermore, such a solution must offer the added benefit of confirming that the ID document is up-to-date and not revoked. Finally, when a physical ID is presented, how can you ensure it belongs to the person presenting it? Even if human ability to compare a printed photo to a person were infallible (it is far from this), how would you know the photo on the document has not been altered or replaced?

Our platform, T5-IDencode, is built for the world where, when 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 access data they do not need. Furthermore, our platform allows for any of these entities to verify that the data they are being permitted to access is indeed the data of the person sharing it, since verification takes place in real time, against the holder, biometrically, whether the holder is physically present, on the phone or online.

The T5-IDencode platform covers the entire identity lifecycle from acquiring and verifying each citizen’s personal and biometric data, through the issuance of a secure digital identity to their smartphone, to the ability to verify that identity using another authorised smartphone, tablet, PC, or dedicated reader. In addition, because we have developed a way of packaging the data in a visual form, called a cryptograph, it can also be printed out on a card or any other document and be verified in exactly the same way as if it were presented on a smartphone screen. Such a platform has numerous benefits. First, it ensures total inclusion for those who do not have or cannot use a smartphone by making it possible for any citizen to print and photocopy their own identities for use in a variety of scenarios. Second, the data are stored in a cryptograph that cannot be accessed without the holder’s “biometric authorization” (the real person’s face or fingerprint, for example). The data remains private and unusable by an unauthorized party but offers the same 1:1 matching capability where the permission is granted. In this way, even an authorised verifying party still only has access to the data when the owner grants permission. Third, because the data in the credential can be segregated, different user access scenarios can be managed whereby 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 licence number, validity, and outstanding infraction information, but a law enforcement officer could be granted access to the entire record.

Finally, the platform allows for biometric-based onboarding of citizens from their own home, building in checks against either physical government-issued documents or existing databases, or both, via the acquisition of a facial image from a smartphone and also fingerprints if required. Once the data record is created on the back-end system (checked against existing biodata and biometrics, if applicable, and merged with existing information if relevant), an encrypted digital credential is provisioned to the smartphone of the citizen over the air. No queuing, no form-filling, no physical presence, or contact. The credential takes the form of a “card-like” image on the phone’s screen, which at its most basic level mimics the physical document that is issued traditionally but can also either be printed out and sent to the holder or sent in electronic form for the holder to print out. However, there are two crucial differences: with an existing physical document, you as a citizen cannot be sure a verifying party is who they say they are, and even if you are sure, you have no choice but to display the whole document to them. With the digital credential (either printed or on your phone), the requesting party’s phone must have the necessary digital keys before any data is shared. The citizen is also notified that the data is being requested. As a result, the citizen has greater control and can opt to share data by agreeing to have their selfie taken or their fingerprints photographed to provide a match to open up the credential.

The verifying party captures the cryptograph with the camera on their phone or other device (pre-installed with the authorised software and holding the correct keys to access the encrypted data) and is instructed to capture a photo of the holder. This all takes a few seconds.

The software instantly addresses two fundamental issues: it verifies that the credential is genuine via the digital key exchange; it verifies the holder is indeed the owner of the digital credential.

The requested data (and only that data, as covered above) is displayed on the device of the verifying party.

And all this happens:

• Offline, wherever it takes place (up a mountain, in the desert, out at sea, with no network coverage) without needing to access a central database or web service.
• Privately, without the issuer of the identity credential being aware (Today, if you use your driver’s license to open a bank account, the issuer does not know nor needs to know, you did this. The same principle should operate in the world of the digital identity).
• Securely, without the holder’s biometric data being passed on or checked against a central database: the verifying software confirms the identity of the holder but does not receive their full biometric data.

Verification can also happen over the internet, online and at a distance, or over the phone. With the holder verifying themselves against their credential by taking a selfie, the same secure biometric authentication can still happen remotely and be confirmed to the verifying party to authorise/verify a transaction or other event.

The mobile credential does not need to replace the physical one issued today. Indeed, it may well not be necessary in many scenarios for years to come. The mobile credential can coexist alongside the physical document (which perhaps remains locked away at home) whilst offering the enhanced verification possibilities outlined above.

Moreover, since the credential is visual in the form of a cryptograph, it can be easily (but securely) added to other documents such as ownership titles or contracts, and even bank statements, utility bills, and so on that are often used to back up identity claims, whether these are printed or stored/sent electronically.

As previously mentioned, the platform also offers the possibility of adding biometric verification of the holder even in the absence of a smartphone. The cryptograph can be printed on an existing physical document, or indeed on a complementary one (even by the individual at home on their own printer), allowing the same biometric-based verification to take place as described above, linking the credential to the holder in a way not possible today without expensive smart-card infrastructure that is simply not available in the majority of use cases.

All of the above is supplied as modules, up to a complete platform, depending on a customer’s needs, existing infrastructure, and other partner contributions to the overall solution.

Once identity goes digital, in a secure and verifiable way, offline, a whole world of possibilities opens up with the creation of a new ecosystem.

TECH5 is more than happy to provide more information, demonstrations, or to discuss pilot projects, at short notice.

The post Building a Digital Identity Solution with TECH5 Where Citizens Can Feel Secure in an Ecosystem Built Around “Zero Trust.” appeared first on TECH5: Innovative Identity Management Technologies.