It has been reported that the UK Home Office will soon be using biometric facial recognition technology in a smartphone app to match a user’s selfie against the image read from a user’s passport chip as a means of self-service identity verification for UK border control.
Dutch & UK Technology
The self-service identity verification ‘enrolment service’ system uses biometric facial recognition technology that was developed in partnership with WorldReach Software, and immigration and border management company, with support from (Dutch) contactless document firm ReadID.
Flashmark By iProov
Flashmark technology, which will be used provide the biometric matching of a user’s selfie against the image read from a user’s passport chip, was developed by a London-based firm called iProov. The idea behind it is to be able to prove that the person presenting themselves at the border for verification is genuinely the owner of an ID credential and not a photo, screen image, recording or doctored video.
Flashmark works by using a sequence of colours to illuminate a person’s face and the reflected light is analysed to determine whether the real face matches the image being presented.
iProov is a big name in the biometric border-control technology world, having won the 2017 National Cyber Security Centre’s Cyber Den competition at CyberUK, and winning a contract from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program. In fact, iProov was the first British and non-US company to be awarded a contract by the DHS to enable travellers to use self-service of document checks at border crossing points.
Smartphone App
The new smartphone-based digital identity verification app from iProov has been developed to help support applications for The EU Settlement Scheme. This is the mechanism for resident EU citizens, their family members, and the family members of certain British citizens, to apply on a voluntary basis for the UK immigration status which they will need to remain in the UK beyond the end of the planned post-exit implementation period on 31 December 2020.
It is believed that the smartphone app will help the UK Home Office to deliver secure, easy-to-use interactions with individuals.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Accurate and secure, automated biometric / facial recognition and identification / i.d. verification systems have many business applications and are becoming more popular. For example, iProov’s technology is already used by banks (ING in the Netherlands) and governments around the world, and banks such Barclays already uses voice authentication for telephone banking customers.
Biometrics are already used by the UK government. For example, in the biometric residence permit (BRP) system, those planning to stay longer than 6 months, or apply to settle in the UK need a biometric permit. This permit includes details such as name, date and place of birth, a scan of the applicant’s fingerprints and a digital photo of the applicant’s face (this is the biometric information), immigration status and conditions, and information about access public funds (benefits and health services).
Many people are already used to using some biometric element as security on their mobile device e.g. facial recognition, fingerprint, or even Samsung’s iris scanner on its Note ‘phablet’. Using a smartphone-based i.d. verification app for border purposes is therefore not such a huge step, and many of us are used to having our faces scanned and matched with our passports anyway as part UK border control’s move towards automation.
Smartphone apps have obvious cost and time savings as well as convenience benefits, plus biometrics provide a reliable and more secure verification system for services than passwords or paper documents. There are, of course, matters of privacy and security to consider, and as well as an obvious ‘big brother’ element, it is right that people should be concerned about where, and how securely their biometric details are stored.