The rise of eID credentials is a trend that’s made landfall with countries in virtually every corner of the planet – but not every corner. The Americas lie in direct opposition to one another in terms of their implementation of national eID credentials. South America has a stable of countries, eight as of 2015, with eIDs. North America, however, is yet to climb aboard while Central America and the Caribbean fall in the middle both geographically as well as in the adoption of eID.

Veri-Fire started a crowdfunding campaign for its Guardian biometric trigger lock, a device that mounts on the weapon’s trigger guard and slides forward enabling the owner to shoot after correct authentication.

Sensory launched TrulySecure 2.0, an updated version of its speaker verification and face recognition solution for mobile, tablets and PCs that enables multimodal biometric authentication.

Without a passport, legal international travel is virtually impossible, but the potential to cross international borders using fraudulent documentation continues to open sovereign nations to major security threats. Standards are meant to ensure that all international travel documents are valid and legitimate. These standards have evolved to incorporate technological advances, but it is not clear whether these improvements are being utilized globally to the fullest extent.

Gemalto is providing Maryland’s Motor Vehicle Administration with a full issuance and personalization solution to support the implementation of polycarbonate technology; DERMALOG unveiled the VF1 device that captures passports or ID cards in color; Smartrac announced the launch of new PRELAMs based on NXP’s MIFARE Plus SE chip; the Las Americas Golden Tower is set to offer guests advanced property security with electronic door lock and safe innovations by ASSA ABLOY Hospitality.

Hoyos Labs fingerprint app captures four fingerprints using the front facing camera on mobile devices. The smartphone camera takes a picture of the four fingers together with the thumb folded over the palm.

The Smart Card Alliance announced its new board and seven-member executive committee to lead and provide guidance to the organization; MorphoTrust has won a contract with the Department of Defense to provide identity verification solutions; Gallagher released its latest products and updates to the security market, including a mobile reader.