Abstract
Facial recognition firms have launched a slew of new products to combat the global Covid-19 virus. But users worldwide are also discarding touch-based fingerprinting systems – prompting fears the pandemic could trigger a business slump among ‘contact’ biometric technology vendors.
Among the new launches, Singapore-based Ramco and China's Telpo have both unveiled facial recognition access control systems that can check users’ temperatures, to detect signs of the coronavirus fever. Meanwhile, Chinese companies Hanwang and Wisesoft, and Spain's Herta, have all launched facial ID systems that can identify people even if they are wearing protective masks.
Over 140 of Wisesoft's systems have been installed in a hospital in China's Sichuan province, while the Beijing police are among those using Hanwang's technology (see page 4 for details). It follows news last month of virus-targeting products launched by Germany's DERMALOG and Chinese biometrics giant SenseTime (see BTT, March issue).
But meantime, users worldwide are shunning fingerprint and other contact-based biometric systems. The New York Police Department (NYPD) has ordered employees to stop using a fingerprint entry security procedure, according to the New York Post.
Likewise, hundreds of businesses in Hyderabad, India have been ordered by the authorities to stop using fingerprint-based employee-tracking systems, after a tech worker there tested positive for Covid-19, according to Telangana Today. The Delhi government has also advised companies and municipal corporations to suspend their use of biometric attendance systems because of the coronavirus threat, reports The Economic Times and Press Trust of India.
Other territories where the use of fingerprint systems has reportedly been stopped or limited include Oman, Schenectady County in New York and Mumbai in India.
Some newer fingerprint systems, such as IDEMIA's MorphoWave 3D print solution, are contactless. But South African facial recognition vendor iiDENTIFii has underlined the contrasting fortunes of touch and touchless system suppliers, after reporting “a spike in demand” for its “no-touch facial authentication platform” as a result of Covid-19.
“We believe that this pandemic, which has created a sudden need for social distancing, has fast-tracked the consideration of remote digital authentication across the globe,” said iiDENTIFii Co-CEO Gur Geva.
Leading US analyst firm ABI Research has backed this view in a new report. This predicts the Covid-19 pandemic will have a “significant and long-term” impact on biometrics companies, developers and customers – while causing a “significant loss” for fingerprint and vein recognition systems.
ABI chief research officer Stuart Carlaw called it a “big moment for biometrics”. He said: “Biometric systems have been brought into the spotlight as a key technology to contain the spread of Covid-19. Contactless technologies like face and iris recognition are now being forced to adapt to the emergent threat. Face recognition operations are being retrofitted with new screening software to detect individuals who are not wearing protective masks. In contrast, applications that rely on fingerprint and vein recognition modalities are suffering a significant loss, as they are heavily reliant on contact-only sensing technology – which poses a great hygienic risk.”
Long-term, Carlaw said: “Contact-only applications are likely to suffer in certain markets, including enterprise, healthcare and border control. Vendors will need to rethink fingerprint and vein verification modalities.”
ABI also predicts Covid-19 will spark “a chain reaction” in the area of data privacy, with users “circumventing a good deal of privacy concerns for the sake of additional surveillance and monitoring”.
Carlaw said regulations protecting personal data could be scaled down, adding: “It therefore falls on governments and biometrics vendors to add the necessary privacy controls. This will prevent citizens’ biometric data falling into the hands of a few entities that have no visibility, no legislative barriers and no surveillance limitations.”
He concluded: “This is a forced evolution for the biometrics market, that is very likely to yield quite volatile results over time.”
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See page 8 for a full report on ABI's study.