BT/ Disneyland testing facial recognition entry system

Paradigm

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Paradigm

21 min readApr 22, 2024

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Biometrics biweekly vol. 87, 8th April — 22nd April

TL;DR

Disney California Adventure is testing out a facial recognition entry system
EU-US to continue aligning digital identity standards
NIST finds biometric age estimation effective in the first benchmark, coming soon
Biometric face image quality standard draft released along with assessment tool
Scientists develop LED tech combining biometric capabilities
Researchers detail refined computer vision method
Facial recognition can predict political beliefs, study suggests
Humane AI Pin–Futuristic wearable computer, but huge performance issues, reviewers say
Pindrop, Veridas raise biometric defenses against voice fraud
Hailo integrates Paravision facial recognition software for edge biometric identification
Intel revives RealSense biometric product line
OKX Ventures has announced a strategic investment in Privasea
Apple supports the reuse of biometric sensors, simplifying the repair process
World Bank officials discuss using Korea’s national digital ID as a model
IdRamp partners with Clear for reusable biometric identity and authentication
Intellicheck, OneID tout banks’ unique position to cut fraud as digital ID enablers
US launches PKI system to make mobile driver’s licenses interoperable, easy to use
Nigeria’s NIMC introducing one multi-purpose digital ID card, not three
Kenya raises issuance targets for digital IDs and passports
Xperix biometric ID document reader chosen by Akiyama for Brazil border control
The UK’s election may spell out the future of its national ID cards
Jamaica parliament soon to receive draft digital ID regulation for scrutiny
Costa Rica sets out to launch digital IDs by the end of 2025
Biometric industry events. And more!

Biometrics Market

The Biometric system market size is projected to grow from USD 36.6 billion in 2020 to USD 68.6 billion by 2025; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 13.4% during the forecast period. Increasing use of biometrics in consumer electronic devices for authentication and identification purposes, the growing need for surveillance and security with the heightened threat of terrorist attacks, and the surging adoption of biometric technology in automotive applications are the major factors propelling the growth of the biometric system market.

Biometric Research & Development

Latest Research:

Swedish Scientists Develop LED Tech Combining Biometric Capabilities

Scientists at Linköping University (LiU) in Sweden have developed LED digital display technology using halide perovskite, which integrates touch, fingerprint recognition, and pulse detection capabilities directly into the screen. Still in the prototype stage, the technology could significantly alter the interaction between users and personal electronic devices by eliminating the need for separate sensors for different functions. The new displays are capable of performing the tasks of conventional sensors and can also charge the device they are integrated into by harvesting light, similar to photovoltaic cells. Although currently limited by the instability of the perovskite material, which degrades after a few hours of use, the researchers are optimistic about resolving these issues within a decade to make this technology viable for mainstream use.

Researchers Detail Refined Computer Vision Method

A team of Chinese researchers has published a new paper proposing significant improvements to Dense Convolutional Network (DenseNet) architecture to enhance image recognition accuracy and efficiency. The researchers focus on two main improvements: refining the model’s internal structure to use fewer parameters while maintaining effectiveness, and optimizing how the model updates its parameters across multiple computing nodes in parallel training environments. They say their approach not only makes the DenseNet model more efficient but also improves its image recognition performance, outperforming other state-of-the-art models.

Facial recognition can predict political beliefs, study suggests

Researchers led by Michal Kosinski at Stanford University have published a study in the journal American Psychologist demonstrating that facial recognition technology can predict a person’s political orientation from neutral facial expressions with a statistically significant accuracy.

The study used a facial recognition algorithm — VGGFace2 in a ResNet-50–256D architecture — to analyze standardized photographs of 591 participants, controlling for variables such as makeup, jewelry, and facial expressions, to focus purely on facial features. These features were encoded into numerical vectors and analyzed to predict political leanings.

The facial recognition system performed with a correlation coefficient of .22 — a modest but statistically significant result. This coefficient ranges from -1 to +1, where 0 implies no correlation, and 1 or -1 implies a perfect positive or negative correlation, respectively.

While the result is, to some extent, remarkable, a second step in the experiment also produced a notable result. The researchers recruited 1,026 human raters through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service and asked them to assess the political orientation of the subjects in the standardized facial images. They completed over 5,000 assessments, and their predictions were about as good as those of the facial recognition system, delivering a correlation coefficient of .21.

“I was surprised that both algorithms and humans could predict political orientation also from carefully standardized images of expressionless faces,” Kosinski said in comments to PsyPost. “That suggests the existence of links between stable facial features and political orientation.”

While certain demographics tend toward particular political leanings — for example, men tend to be more conservative than women — the researchers took extensive measures to ensure that their study controlled for demographic factors that could influence the predictions of political orientation based on facial features. They did this by decorrelating participants’ scores on a political orientation scale from their age, gender, and ethnicity. This methodological step was crucial to isolate the effect of facial features alone on political orientation predictions.

In practice, this meant that the predictive model they developed, and the subsequent analysis were refined to ensure that any correlations found were not merely reflecting demographic characteristics that are traditionally associated with certain political orientations. Instead, the focus was on whether distinct facial features could independently predict political orientation.

The study’s conclusions offer interesting implications, perhaps most notably the idea that political beliefs can somehow be encoded in an individual’s face to some degree. But given the relative weakness of the correlation, it’s probably best not to make any assumptions that could spark a heated debate in an election year.

Main News:

Disney tests out face biometrics for theme park access control

Disney California Adventure is testing out a facial recognition entry system, according to Disneyland News Today.

Gates were installed at one of the Disneyland park’s entrances a few weeks ago. During the testing period at least, guests can’t use the MagicBand+ RFID bracelets at the gates, though there are touchpoints available.

First, a guest has their photo taken if one is not already in the system. When they scan their ticket at the gate, a camera above takes a scan of the guest’s face to biometrically compare it to the photo in the system. The gates open once the guest is verified.

Shannen Ace participated in the test run. When she went to take a photo of the screen, it said too many faces were detected. She also needed to take off her sunglasses for her identity to be verified. She found that it took longer than it normally would.

Walt Disney World Resort in Florida ran a similar test back in March 2021, but it ended in May 2021 and the system wasn’t permanently put into use. All of Universal Orlando theme parks got upgraded with facial recognition for entry last year. Epic Universe, set to open in Orlando, Florida mid-2025, will also use facial recognition.

EU-US to continue aligning digital identity standards

The United States and the European Union are continuing to work on making technical standards for digital identity compatible. Following a Trade and Technology Council (TTC) ministerial meeting in Leuven, Belgium last week, the two sides released a joint statement, detailing the progress that has been made and outlining future steps.

“The next phase of this project will focus on identifying potential use cases for transatlantic interoperability and cooperation with a view toward enabling the cross-border use of digital identities and wallets,” the statement says.

According to the ministers, the cooperation mechanism, which seeks to align the U.S. and EU on technology and trade policy, has led to tangible results over the past two years. Among them is the Digital Identity Mapping Exercise Report covering standards for electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions.

Originally released as a draft document in December, the report concludes that the two sides share significant commonalities in definitions and approaches to assurance. The greatest difference between the two sides is in trust services, which are not explicitly addressed in NIST SP 800–63 Digital Identity Guidelines, the report notes.

The NIST standard is currently under revision.

The two sides promised to continue information exchange on international standardization through the Strategic Standardisation Information (SSI) mechanism.

NIST finds biometric age estimation effective in first benchmark, coming soon

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology presented a preview of its assessment of facial age estimation with selfie biometrics at the Global Age Assurance Standards Summit, which revealed promising initial results for assurance that an individual is over 18. The evaluation also suggests that with effective thresholds in place, biometric age estimation is potentially as effective as checking a date of birth field on an identity document.

Six algorithms were submitted to NIST’s Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE) Age Estimation & Verification track. Yoti is among them, and presented an overview of the presentation in a blog post. Other biometrics providers submitting algorithms were ROC, Dermalog, Incode, Neurotechnology and Unissey.

NIST’s evaluation is based on the “Challenge 25” principle, Biometric Standards and Testing Lead Patrick Grother explained to online and in-person attendees. The database used did not include images of people below 14 years of age, and NIST does not have any plans at this time to test age estimation for younger ages.

The report is expected to be released in the next few weeks, and Grother notes that other reports from the organization are revised roughly a monthly basis. NIST has had indications that more developers will submit algorithms in the future.

The discussion touched on the distribution of the images in the dataset, in terms of factors like demographics and image quality, and the differences between the kids of images NIST uses and those captured in a supermarket setting. Grother also explained in response to a question from Yoti CEO Robin Tombs that NIST’s evaluation of facial age estimation but not other modalities is a practical matter, as that is the modality NIST has a large volume of samples for. He left unsaid that transmitting images is much more common online than speech samples.

Collecting facial images of children is a problem in general, Grother explains, as it takes on ethical and data privacy challenges, but also costs, which are generally not balanced by the same level of interest as there is in data collected from adults. AI-generated data may or may not be synthesizing the right thing, and could deliver very different algorithmic results, even if it looks to the naked eye like it is creating real images.

Grother says that NIST’s evaluation could lead to comments on part 3 of the ISO/IEC WD 27566 standard in development, which deals with benchmarking.

Age assurance tech is ready now, and international standards are on their way

The Global Age Assurance Standards Summit has wrapped up, culminating in a set of assertions, a seven-point call-to-action and four main principles for protecting young people from the risks of age-inappropriate goods and services.

The event convened more than 700 stakeholders for a week of consultation and debate about the future of standards for age assurance, what their goals should be and how they can be achieved technically, with support from the Safe Online initiative and the British Standards Institute (BSI). The first four days of the event covered many different facets of the issue, including detailed discussions of technical terminology, alternative methods of carrying out age checks, parental consent and how biometrics fit with the other parts of a complete system.

A communique from the event organizers begins with statements they say reflect a consensus amongst attendees: It is possible with current technology to deploy age assurance in a way “that is privacy preserving, secure, effective and efficient.” In combination with other tools, it can help protect children in the digital world.

International standards will help ensure that protection, and “laws and regulations can (emphasis in original) create the legal framework with robust procedures in place to secure the protection of children from harm.” All of this can also be done in a way that does not erode the freedom of adults online.

A definition is provided, courtesy of the working group behind ISO/IEC WD 27566–1. “Age assurance is the process of establishing, determining and/or confirming an age assurance attribute, including age verification, age estimation and age inference,” the definition reads.

That standard’s part 1 (framework) has reached a committee draft, after a consensus was reached at the Summit, and will be released to national standards bodies. Part 2 has been approved as a work item, and work was done on part 2, with another call for contributions expected soon, Age Check Certification Scheme Founder and CEO Tony Allen told attendees during a wrap-up session.

The call to action specifies support for future adoption of the standards developed, and encouragement for governments to adopt them to align with their legislation. Those who decide age eligibility are urged to apply the standards and make “their controls are transparent, accountable and respectful of the rights of individuals.” All stakeholders are urged to support the dissemination of the standards, and further dialogue around them, and

“Encourage age assurance companies to engage in human rights due diligence throughout the lifecycle of their products, in order to prevent and effectively prevent and/or address any adverse impacts on the full range of human rights and children’s rights caused by, contributed to or linked to age assurance tools. This will ensure that age assurance tools can be deployed in a way that maximises the protection of children, whilst also maximising privacy and data protection for both children and adults.”

Governments should be encouraged to report back to the international standards bodies about their progress, and attendees should stay engaged as all of the above happens.

The four principles decided on are that age assurance should be based on individuals’ rights and best interest, the principle of data minimization, transparency and accountability, and cooperation and participation.

Biometric face image quality standard draft released along with assessment tool

The Open Source Face Image Quality (OFIQ) assessment software library and the Draft International Standard it is a reference implementation for are now available on GitHub.

OFIQ can be used to identify images that will be difficult for face biometrics systems to process due to low image quality.

ISO/IEC 29794–5 is the standard for face image data within the biometric sample quality family of standards. It is applicable to enrollment for biometric passports and the biometric kiosks used for the EU’s EES. The sixth working draft went out to working group members for comments last February.

“The standard will define a unified quality score for a face image and numerous quality components, which provide accurate information such as the correctness of the pose or the sharpness of the face image (and many others),” says a LinkedIn post from ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 37 Biometrics.

The Draft International Standard is posted to the GitHub repository as document ISO/IEC JTC 1/Sc 37/WG 3 N 1511, along with the open source code for OFIQ.

For its part, NIST has adapted its Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE) Part 11: Face Image Quality Vector Assessment to better align with ISO 29794–5:2024.

Image quality was also judged to be the main challenge to accurate biometric matching in DHS’ 2022 Biometric Technology Rally. A representative of DHS’ biometric and identity technology center told a federal Identity and Access Forum meeting that facial recognition is successfully matching 95 percent of people correctly, but 75 percent of observed “errors are due to camera image capture problems,” according to a Secure Technology Alliance announcement.

Pindrop, Veridas raise biometric defenses against voice fraud

Pindrop has won the Voice Cloning Challenge run by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with three smaller organizations.

The challenge results were announced just as investors in India were viewing recommendations on stock purchases that appeared to be from National Stock Exchange (NSE) CEO and MD Ashishkumar Chauhan. The fraudulent video, shared on social media, faked both the face and voice of Chauhan and the NSE logo. The NSE has issued a public caution about the deepfake reminding investors of the sources for legitimate information.

The submissions to the FTC challenge from smaller organizations, AI Detect, DeFake and OriginStory, will split $35,000 in prize money. AI Detect was submitted by OmniSpeech, OriginStory by a startup of the same name, and DeFake was submitted by Washington University (St. Louis) Department of Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Dr. Ning Zhang.

Pindrop and AI Detect both utilize AI algorithms to detect characteristics that reveal a given voice sample is synthetic. Pindrop’s submission makes use of the biometric liveness detection technology the company provides to commercial customers, while AI Detect’s also includes a framework for the responsibilities of public and private sector organizations. Pindrop says its technology works in real-time, with speech samples recorded over a phone (8 kHz) or digital channel (16 kHz).

Pindrop’s technology was also judged the only effective one among several deepfake detection tools tested recently by NPR.

DeFake proposed a technique of watermarking voice samples that could be used in the generation of voice clones to prevent accurate cloning, without being detectable by humans in the source sample. OriginStory collects signals from sensors commonly contained in electronic devices to measure speech acoustics and “co-occuring biosignals in the throat and mouth” to authenticate that genuineness of the sample and create a watermark that attests that it is real.

The challenge was originally unveiled last year with $25,000 in prize money available to smaller organizations.

The FTC has proposed new rules on impersonation fraud and stated the jurisdiction of the Telemarketing Sales Rule over AI fraud calls, as additional measures to combat voice deepfakes.

A new technology has been launched by Veridas to combat voice fraud, whether in the form of pre-recorded audio, manipulated or artificially generated speech, or deepfakes.

Voice Shield software can analyze millions of calls in just milliseconds, according to the announcement, regardless of language or text spoken, and make judgements from 3 seconds of audio data, without a reference sample. Without a need for prior registration, the software also helps optimize conversion rates, the company says.

Veridas’ technology was developed based on its experience in securing 5 million processes globally with voice biometrics, and the company cites a ten-fold increase in deepfakes detected from 2022 to 2023.

Hailo integrates Paravision facial recognition software for edge biometric identification

Paravision has partnered with Hailo to incorporate their advanced facial recognition technology into specialized devices, such as the Hailo-8 AI accelerator and the Hailo-15 family of AI vision processors.

With Paravision’s comprehensive suite of facial recognition products, developers can create and implement biometric identification and authentication solutions for various edge applications.

The two companies’ collaboration aims to utilize their respective strengths to provide a cost-effective and efficient solution for enabling edge devices to perform real-time and accurate face recognition.

The integration allows Hailo customers to take advantage of Paravision’s facial recognition accuracy and the power efficiency of devices running these applications without sending data back to a centralized cloud server.

“Hailo’s processors were designed from the ground up for just this: to bring the latest in Vision AI to low-power edge environments, unlocking new opportunities and use cases for our partners,” says Yaniv Iarovici, vice president of Business Development at Hailo.

The collaboration has received positive feedback from industry partners. Vicon Industries has already reported improved results in achieving fast identification and high accuracy while prioritizing the privacy of client data.

Paravision offers a range of deployment options for its face recognition technology, including SDKs, Docker-based containers, and mobile vision AI. According to the company, its technology has achieved top rankings in NIST FRTE benchmarks, demonstrating accuracy in both 1:1 verification and 1:N identification.

Iarovici adds, “We’re thrilled to have Paravision face recognition optimized for Hailo processors and to offer this unique combination from two technology innovators.”

Hailo recently secured $120 million through the series C financing round. These funds will accelerate the research and development of advanced biometric technologies for smart cameras and expand the market reach.

Intel revives RealSense biometric product line

Intel has unveiled RealSense ID, a face biometrics technology combining hardware and software. The facial authentication solution uses an active stereo-depth sensor and specialized neural network to authenticate the user on-device, the company says.

RealSense ID is implemented on the Intel RealSense ID F455 Peripheral or F450 Module through an SDK for integration into access control kiosks, ATMs, time and attendance scanners and points-of-sale. It features a false acceptance rate (FAR) of one in a million, and PAD that can catch more than 99.9 percent of spoof attempts, according to the announcement.

RealSense ID will be showcased at ISC West 2024, and in a webinar on May 1.

Although Intel announced in 2021 that the RealSense division would be discontinued, the launch of RealSense ID appears to signal a rebirth, or at least a further stay of execution.

Crypto Venture Firm Invests in Privasea

OKX Ventures, the investment branch of the prominent crypto exchange OKX, has announced a strategic investment in Privasea, a data infrastructure platform that enhances privacy and security in AI computations. Leveraging Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) and machine learning, Privasea enables multiple parties to collaborate on sensitive data without exposing it — an important offering for applications like AI development, where data privacy is paramount. This investment comes as part of OKX Ventures’ broader initiative to support innovative blockchain projects globally. OKX Ventures founder Dora Yue highlighted “new user experiences that the Privasea AI network will bring later this year, such as secure file sharing, privacy-conscious facial recognition and a streamlined KYC process.”