New authentication research from FIDO and Javelin finds that too many businesses and consumers still rely on weak passwords, presenting criminals many juicy targets. But there is hope for better security as mobile commerce and ID continue to rise—and as enterprises recover from breaches and adopt two factor techniques.

The Middle Eastern locale wants to make boarding and immigration more efficient by using smartphones, biometric checks and more data links. But that’s not all. Also in the works is a system through which certain travelers could authenticate themselves during a car ride to the airport.

The name Stephanie Schuckers is almost synonymous with liveness detection in biometrics. But it doesn’t end there. Dr. Schuckers is also a professor at Clarkson University, director of the Center for ID Technology Research, founder of a biometric startup and mentor to an ongoing crop of new biometric scientists. Last year, the startup she founded was acquired by a leading biometric company. This month, she is being honored as a recipient of the 2017 Women in Biometrics Awards.

Biometrics was neither a household term nor a ‘handset technology’ when Frances Zelazny began working with facial recognition two decades ago. During her career she has helped shape the use of biometrics for security, identity and now for payment applications. Throughout, she has advocated for responsible use guidelines and practices, something that has proven essential to the industry’s maturation.

Liane Moriyama retired last summer as Administrator of the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center and she is honored for her innovative career as a 2017 winner of the Women in Biometrics awards. She was instrumental in bringing the first AFIS to Hawaii and helping other states to follow suit. But it is her crossover between the use of biometrics for law enforcement and its use to protect vulnerable populations that defines her most significant contributions.

Creator of the FBI’s Biometric Center for Excellence and Deputy Assistant Director of the Information Services Branch of CJIS, Kimberly Del Greco is a go to biometrics lead for the Federal government. She was instrumental in the Next Generation Identification Program that redefined algorithms and modalities to increase the agency’s biometric match rates and image quality.

A patent application describes a new device that would enable consumers to use biometric authentication via a fingerprint sensor placed in one or more keys on a computer keyboard. Even as iris, facial and other biometric authentication technologies gain ground, fingerprints apparently still have new realms to conquer, and one may prove to be ongoing ambient authentication.