Identify online daters, better tools for law enforcement, face as currency, and more.
The future of facial recognition: 7 fascinating facts (TED Blog)
Building out the UID
UIDAI launches Aadhaar-enabled electronic know your customer service (Times of India)
Under the e-KYC process, one can authorise the UIDAI to release the KYC data to a service provider. The consent can be provided either in person (through biometric authentication) or online. The UIDAI will provide the details like name, address, date of birth, mobile number and email address to the service provider electronically.
The promise of UID is in the apps. It’s nice to see them starting to trickle through.
BigID and the changing nature of national identity infrastructures
Nigeria’s new ID has apps!
Credit card linked to Nigerian ID (Financial Mail)
In the programme’s first phase, Nigerians aged 16 and older and all who have been resident there for more than two years will get the new multipurpose ID, which has 13 applications. It is expected that up to 13m Nigerians will use the product in the first phase.
Among the apps is MasterCard’s prepaid technology, which will give cardholders the ability to make electronic payments. MasterCard says this will also have a positive impact on Nigerians who until now have not had access to mainstream financial services.
This one bears keeping an eye on.
In a couple of pioneering cases, the very concept of “The ID” is shifting
To most people, an ID looks a lot like a product — something useful that the government sells to an individual. Pay your fee; get your card. Lose your card; buy a new one.
India and Nigeria (South Africa is pretty bold, too) are pointing the way toward a future where ID isn’t just a product, though no government is going to give up its ID card product line any time soon. The future as these countries see it is ID as a government-backed platform supporting an ID ecosystem. They have the bucket (database structure). Now it’s being filled (populated). If they get the application programming interface/s (API) right, fasten your seat belt. Things will get really interesting really fast as all sorts of apps hooking into the ID infrastructure become available. Biometric technologies will be an integral part of this transition to “BigID.”
UPDATE:
See also:
Brainstorming UID with Srikanth Nadhamuni
The video there is very informaative and extremely worthwhile.
UPDATE II:
I forgot to mention the UAE as another forward-thinking ID environment. The UAE ID is set to be deployed on smartphones.
Start with the applications
10 Big Data Trends From the GigaOM Structure Data Conference (eweek)Good observations having broad applicability in understanding how the recipe for organizational success is being rewritten. Read the whole thing.
Money quote:
While big data might be getting ahead of itself in enterprise promises, it is real in bringing new capabilities to business. You need to think about the skills you have in your company and developing the data skills to adapt to this new model. Open source, which often has a bit of a fringe reputation in the enterprise, will be part of your technology future. Established vendors are going to promise they can give you all the capabilities of the startups with added stability, but I haven’t seen any evidence so far. Think about your applications from the outside in, instead of inside out.
The application, not the technology, is everything.
WVU’s own Bojan Cukic holds forth on the state of biometric applications.
Tipping Point Unclear For Mass Market Adoption Of Biometrics
Cukic said that most biometric devices currently available are standalone solutions that do not have access to the Internet. Were this to change, Cukic believes the use of biometrics could receive a significant shot in the arm. “I would say that we have good components, but the question remains, who is going to be the developer responsible for offering these systems in which biometrics address some of the authorization and authentication problems that we face today?” he added.
Middleware and the application development it enables will be critical to moving these technologies out of the lab and niche government installations and into positive ROI applications for profit-making entities.
Or (more succinctly…
Very good article on the state of the industry. Middleware is the glue that pulls this together. #Biometrics @securlinx ow.ly/ccu1a
— Barry Hodge (@HodgeBarry) July 12, 2012