January 2018

Industry News

Google’s popular art selfie tech not accessible in Illinois [and Texas] (Illinois News Network)

“The company hasn’t said why residents of the two states can’t use it. One thing both have in common is laws allowing lawsuits for not protecting biometric information. A key difference, however, is any Illinoisan can file a lawsuit, whereas Texas’ attorney general would have to initiate one there. Washington state has a law similar to Texas but users there reportedly are able to access the function.”

Industry News

For fingerprints at least, familiarity breeds contentment

Visa Survey Results Suggest Familiarity is Key to Enthusiasm for Biometric Authentication (Mobile ID World)

“Conducted by AYTM Market Research, the study polled a thousand Canadian adults toward the end of last autumn. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they were most familiar with fingerprint recognition, and a quarter said they use it regularly. Sixty-nine percent expressed interest in fingerprint-based authentication, and 61 percent reported being interested in using the technology for payments.”

Industry News

Someone sold passwords to India’s ID database

Aadhaar ‘breach’: Everything you need to know (Hindustan Times)

“The crux of the matter, as reported by Tribune newspaper and corroborated by BuzzFeed News, is that there exists a portal on the Aadhaar website which gives anyone who has the login credentials access to the Aadhaar database. UIDAI says the portal is intended for government officials for addressing grievances such as rectifying spelling mistakes in a person’s name.
But somewhere in the chain, according to media reports, rogue agents have started to sell access to this portal to just anyone.”

It looks like a government employee was selling username/password(s) to access the government database at a fairly low level. It should be pretty easy to figure out who abused their position.