Countries including Australia, the US, Canada, Israel and Kuwait have

announced plans to develop national biometric systems in 2013. Biometric facial scans taken for passports, driv-ers licences or nightclub entry can now be stored in police and spy agency databases, under changes to Australia’s privacy laws.

According to the Australian Herald Sun, new privacy legislation has removed the ban on biometric data being handed to crime-fighting agencies and police will be able to ask private companies, including shops, pubs and clubs, to hand over their patrons’ facial scans.

The US is also extending the scope of its biometric systems, according to Fierce Homeland Security. The Homeland Security Department is able to tap into other countries’ fingerprint databases to identify individuals. The US and four other countries, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, share fingerprint information through a system called the Secure Real Time Platform.

Robert Mocny, director of US-Visit referring to the system that collects fingerprint scans of foreign travellers entering the US, is reported as saying that the DHS increasingly looks abroad for fingerprint information, which is linked to the FBI fingerprint database. In four locations, ‘soon to be all locations’, customs and border protection officials can access FBI data in real time.

According to the Vancouver Sun, Canada will soon begin sharing biometric information and other data about visa applicants with the US, which then may provide it to third countries under a treaty signed in December 2012. The biometric sharing initiative affects nationals of 29 countries and one territory seeking visas to Canada.

Under the immigration agreement, biograph-ic information name, date of birth and gender of visa applicants and asylum claimants will be shared by 2013. Biometric information, such as photos and fingerprints of select visa applicants, will be shared by 2014.

The government of Kuwait is seeking inter-national consultancy help for an automated biometric identification system (ABIS) project that aims to develop a single unified national biometric database of both citizens and resi-dents of Kuwait.

The Israel parliament, The Knesset, has approved the launch of a national biometric identification system to be tested at the begin-ning of 2013, according to local reports.

The trial period will span two years, during which Israel will establish a national biometric database and distribute smart identification cards to citizens who agree to provide biometric data such as fingerprints and digital photos of their faces.

The initial draft of the law has been revised due to opposition from privacy rights groups, fuelled by the theft of Israel’s national biometric database in 2006.

Global moves to extend the scope of national biometric identification systems

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News

Global moves to extend the scope of national biometric ID systems 1

New Zealand and EU act to bring secure identities to the internet 1

Biometrics Institute urges caution over plans for national pupil database 2

Ecuador deploys national bimodal system 2

Australia defence authorities pilot multimodal tech 2

Biometrics to play wider role in e-health 3

India authorities look to biometrics beyond its borders 3

Biometric voting systems hit snags in Africa 3

PIPA Solutions seeks crowd funding for fingerprint solution 3

IATA reports preference for biometrics for boarding 12

Car makers to monitor driving capabilities with biometrics 12

Chinese search engine Baidu to offer face search 12

Features

BEAT – biometrics evaluation and testing

Sébastien Marcel, Idiap Research Institute, introduces the EU BEAT project. 5

RapidDNA: a game changer in the law enforcement identification stakes Steve Gold reports. 7

Academia and industry collaboration to drive biometrics boom

Michael Fairhurst, IET Biometrics, looks at the state of play of industry-academic collaboration. 10

Regulars

Events Calendar 3

News in Brief 4

Product News 4

Company News 4

Comment 12

Contents

biometric TECHNOLOGY

ISSN 0969-4765 January 2013 www.biometrics-today.com

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New Zealand and EU act to bring secure identities to the internet

The close of 2012 saw moves by both New Zealand and EU authori-

ties to tackle the provision of secure internet IDs at a national level.

In December 2012 the New Zealand parliament passed the Electronic Identity Verification Act, which will enable private

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