Government ID, Smart Cards, Identification and Authentication

Schumer calling for biometric Social Security cards

Monday, April 27, 2009

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D – N.Y.) is proposing biometric Social Security cards as a way to better curb illegal immigration into the country, according to a Newsday article.

Schumer has taken over as chairman of the Senate immigration subcommittee from Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and may play a more important role in immigration policy.


The senator plans to separate illegal from legal immigrants with “the linchpin: a biometric Social Security card that includes digital records of personal characteristics.”

It’s not clear from the article how the biometric ID card would be used.

Read the full story here. [end] 

South African-based biometric firm Ideco revealed in its year-end results that it scored three contracts to provide biometric solutions, reports Business Day.

Ideco is working on Namibia’s driver’s license project and supplying Gautrain smart cards to the Bombela Operating Company. Two of its new contracts involve biometric solutions for medical applications. The third will supply biometric readers to a financial institution for the purpose of client identification.

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By: Jim Fulton, Vice President at Digital Persona Inc.

Looking back at the last 18 months, I am amazed by the progress biometric civil ID programs have made around the world. Whether it is the national elections in Brazil and Nigeria, or the widespread ID enrollment program in India, fingerprint biometrics have been a significant factor in the success of many Civil ID programs.

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The Malaysian Election Commission has decided to forego the use of the biometric voter verification system for the country’s upcoming elections, according to an article form The Star.

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In an effort to streamline passenger security, Jakarta, Indonesia’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport has opened the country’s first biometric immigration gate.

Fingerprint biometric identification provider BIO-key International, Inc. and Oakwell Engineering Limited partnered to create the new gate, designed for use by passengers with electronic passports. Passengers submit their e-passports and authenticate with a fingerprint.

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In an effort to increase the security of the current EMV chip and PIN, SmartMetric has created an EMV card enhanced with biometrics.

The SmartMetric Chip & Biometric EMV Card incorporates fingerprints to activate the card. It’s designed to increase the security of standard EMV chip and PIN cards, which SmartMetric claims are still vulnerable to fraud attacks, even though they are safer than a magnetic stripe card.

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The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking for proposals for research projects that could yield new biometric systems that authenticate users based on their own unique movements or behaviors such as the way they type or move a mouse, according to a ZDNet article.

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