IDEMIA Completes Facial Recognition Trial with CBP at New Jersey Sea Terminal
IDEMIA says it and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL) have completed a trial with U.S. Customs and Border Protection of facial recognition technology to validate passengers’ identities for entry and re-entry of cruise ships at Cape Liberty Cruise Port in New Jersey. The technology was used to confirm the identities of passengers on RCL’s ships at the end of a cruise to ensure they were the same travelers that embarked the ship at the beginning of a cruise. IDEMIA says the trial demonstrated the “high quality/high speed facial matching with larger passenger populations.” “IDEMIA is at the forefront of the ‘Passenger Transformation,’” says Bob Eckel, president of IDEMIA North America. “Passengers need to move securely, but also fast and conveniently through the border processes. The biometric solutions we are testing with RCL and CBP allow us to demonstrate the important technology that can be used in border management applications today in an efficient and safe manner. Facial recognition in particular is a non-intrusive way to easily and securely facilitate U.S. and non-U.S. citizens entering and exiting the country, an initiative important to the federal government.” RCL says the pilot exceeded its expectations in terms of passenger throughput re-entering the U.S. IDEMIA used its MorphoFace technology for the trial. The company says future phases of the pilot effort will incorporate the technology for embarkation of travelers. The technology has also been used as part of CBP’s biometric exit evaluations for departing international flights.
TSA Certifies Rohde & Schwarz Body Scanner
Germany’s Rohde & Schwarz says the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has certified the company’s millimeter wave-based Advanced Imaging Technology system to meet aviation security detection requirements. Certification means that the TSA can buy the company’s QPS200 AIT system for screening passengers at U.S. airport checkpoints. L3 Technologies [LLL] is currently the sole provider of AIT systems to TSA for whole body imaging. “We are pleased that the R&S QPS200 has achieved the milestone of TSA detection certification and look forward to building a partnership with TSA at U.S. airports to deliver next generation security capabilities,” says Scott Bausback, president and CEO of R&S USA, Inc. The QPS200 system has also achieved certification by the European Civil Aviation Conference and is in use at airports across Europe. The company says its AIT system can scan a person in a few milliseconds. The system includes privacy protection algorithms that produce a generic outline of a person to indicate to operators the location of an alarm.
Crossmatch Partners with BehavioSec to Add Keyboard-Capture for Authentication
Crossmatch says it has partnered with BehavioSec, a provider of behavioral biometric solutions, to add keyboard-capture as an authentication factor into its DigitalPersona enterprise security application. DigitalPersona already includes customized authentication tools, including one-time password, PIN, contact or contactless card and fingerprint. “We selected BehavioSec’s platform because they are singularly focused on behavioral biometrics and have well-established and proven technology that already serves more than 35 million end users,” says Jeff Carpenter, director of Identity and Access Management at Crossmatch. “The addition of their technology to DigitalPersona’s composite authentication mix offers great added value to customers who continue to look for ways to mitigate their exposure to cyber security breach.”
McAfee To Acquire Cloud Security Firm Skyhigh Networks
Moving to complement its current cyber security offerings around endpoint protection, McAfee has agreed to acquire Skyhigh Networks, a leader in software technology that helps provides security between an organization’s on-premise infrastructure and a cloud infrastructure. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Both companies are privately owned. “Skyhigh is an ideal complement to McAfee’s strategy, one focused on building and optimizing mission-critical cybersecurity environments for the future,” says Christopher Young, McAfee’s CEO, in a blog post discussing the deal. “Cloud security has historically been an afterthought of, or impediment to, cloud adoption.” He says that Skyhigh pioneered the cloud access security broker product category, “that analysts describe as one of the fastest growing areas of information security investments of the last five years,” adding that Skyhigh continues to innovate in this area. The CASB technology allows organizations to extend their security to cloud services. With the acquisition, which McAfee expects to close in early 2018 following regulatory approvals, McAfee will stand up a new cloud business unit led by Rajiv Gupta, CEO of Skyhigh. Skyhigh has over 300 employees. Skyhigh’s customers include more than 30 percent of the Fortune 100 companies.