October 2013 Biometric Technology Today

EVENTS CALENDAR

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NEWS

Football and fun parks embrace fingerprint recognition

The Argentine Football Association (AFA) has introduced a biometric

system in place of paper tickets, accord-ing to reports. The scheme, which has reportedly cost the AFA 47m euros, will use biometric scanners and electronic cards containing the supporter’s name, address, photo and fingerprints.

Around four million people are expected to apply for a card, as tickets will no longer be sold at stadiums. The AFA has introduced the technology to address hooliganism.

Meanwhile, visitors at several amuse-ment parks in China are using their fin-gers to authenticate themselves on Galasys Technologies stations using Lumidigm sensors at entertainment complex gates, ticket booths and member kiosks. At the Beijing children’s park Babyboss, parents’ fingerprints must match their child’s RFID wristband when col-lecting their children from the park grounds.

London Tube cleaners reject fingerprint clock-in

London Underground cleaners are protesting against the introduction

of fingerprint recognition machines. Danish employer ISS UK wants to introduce

a new biometric clocking-in system but 98% of cleaning staff voted against it.

The RMT Union, which represents the clean-ers, says, “We congratulate our members on their determination to resist this draconian attack on civil liberties.” The RMT has instigated the ‘Thumbs Down To Fingerprinting’ campaign.

DHS tests facial ID video at hockey match

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the US plans to use video

footage collected at a recent Western Hockey League game in Washington State to compare facial recognition tech-nologies, according to FCW.com.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is reported to have gathered the video at the request of DHS Science & Technology Directorate’s Resilient Systems Division. DHS Science & Technology Directorate spokesman

John Verrico told FCW that the video footage collected by PNNL would be used to compare the capabilities of various state-of-the-art and commonly available, off-the-shelf facial recogni-tion systems in changeable, realistic conditions.

Namibia healthcare services use fingerprint tech to counter fraud

Healthcare schemes in Namibia are to use biometric technol-

ogy to address issues of fraud. This comes as researchers have found that the healthcare biometrics market is expected to see considerable growth across the globe due to a rising need to address increasing healthcare fraud, as well as to provide improved patient care and protect patent privacy, accord-ing to a report recently released by Transparency Market Research.

Medical schemes in Namibia – Namibia Health Plan (NHP), Nammed and Renaissance Health – have engaged LifePoint and Muvoni Biometric & Smartcard Solutions (MBSS) to implement point-of-care and point-of-sale devices, fitted with biometric fingerprint capa-bility and backed by a cloud-based platform for member enrolment and identity verification.

MBSS managing director, Stan Khan, says, “Given the soaring costs of healthcare fraud, integrated biometric systems are the way to go in the future. They’re becoming increasingly popular among medical schemes locally and globally. They can easily be applied to banks and insurance companies, which are also bat-tling the consequences of fraud.”

Transparency Market Research’s report is titled, ‘Healthcare Biometrics Market (Fingerprint, Face, Iris, Voice, Vein, Signature and Hand Recognition Technologies, Logical Access Control, Physical Access Control and Transaction Authentication Applications) – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 – 2019’.

Global defence forces turn to biometric tech

NATO and the US Department of Defense (DoD) have revealed

an increasing focus on biometric

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healthcare

homeland

15–17 October 2013London, UKBiometrics Exhibition and Conference 2013The conference runs from 15–17 October, while the exhibition runs from 16–17 October. Now in its fifteenth year, the annual Biometrics Show brings together biometric suppliers and users.More information: www.biometrics.elsevier.com

5–7 November 2013Frankfurt, GermanyID World International CongressThe ID WORLD International Congress is a show-case on the evolving world of RFID, biometrics and smart card technologies, and is the only international forum that looks at the advanced ID industry as a whole, rather than focusing on a specific technology or vertical sector.More information: http://www.mesago.de/en/IDW/home.htm

12–14 November 2013Greater Boston, Massachusetts, USTechnologies for Homeland Security The 13th annual IEEE conference on Technologies for Homeland Security will bring together innova-tors from leading academic, industry, business, Homeland Security Centers of Excellence, and government programmes to provide a forum to discuss ideas, concepts, and experimental results. Produced by IEEE with technical support from DHS S&T, IEEE Boston Section, IEEE Biometrics Council, and IEEE-USA and organisational support from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Raytheon, Battelle, and MITRE, this year’s event will once again showcase selected technical paper and posters highlight-ing emerging technologies in the areas of cyber security, attack and disaster preparation, recovery, and response, land and maritime border security biometrics and forensics.More information: ieee-hst.org

13–14 November 2013London, UKTransport Security ExpoTransport Security Expo brings experts from gov-ernment, military, law enforcement and security services face to face with the aviation, maritime and public transport industries, to assess the threat level, examine the countermeasures in place and, where necessary, recommend strategies to deal with these threats.More information: www.transec.com

19–21 November 2013Paris, FranceCartes 2013 Exhibition and ConferenceCARTES Secure Connexions Event 2013 is a comprehensive event including a trade show, conferences and awards that is dedicated to the digital security and smart technology sector and its innovations.More information: www.cartes.com

3–4 December 2013London, UKWorld BORDERPOL CongressThe Borderpol Conference and Exhibition is aimed at those in the border protection, management or security industry and supply products or services to border agencies and security forces. More information: http://www.borderpol-event.org

defence