Tag Archives: biometrics

The Guardian: Archaeologists reveal life stories of hundreds of people from medieval Cambridge

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The Guardian: Archaeologists reveal life stories of hundreds of people from medieval Cambridge. “Archaeologists at Cambridge University have reconstructed the ‘biographies’ of hundreds of the city’s ordinary medieval residents by examining their skeletons in detail, using a wealth of scientific data to fill out the life stories of poor or disadvantaged people whose names were never recorded.”

INTERPOL: INTERPOL unveils new biometric screening tool

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INTERPOL: INTERPOL unveils new biometric screening tool . “In mid-November, a fugitive migrant smuggler was subject to a police check… Wanted on organized crime and human trafficking charges since 2021, the smuggler presented himself as a fellow migrant under a false name, using a fraudulent identification document to avoid detection. The police check, however, was part of an INTERPOL operation that saw the Biometric Hub – a new tool that checks biometric data against the organization’s global fingerprint and facial recognition databases – used remotely for the first time.”

Harvard Gazette: How facial-recognition app poses threat to privacy, civil liberties

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Harvard Gazette: How facial-recognition app poses threat to privacy, civil liberties. “[Kashmir] Hill spoke of the need to come up with regulations to safeguard users’ privacy and rein in social media platforms that are profiting from users’ personal information without their consent. Some states have passed laws to protect people’s right to access personal information shared on social media sites and the right to delete it, but that is not enough, she said.”

New York Times: Face Search Engine PimEyes Blocks Searches of Children’s Faces

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New York Times: Face Search Engine PimEyes Blocks Searches of Children’s Faces. “Concerns about children’s privacy have led PimEyes, the public face search engine, to ban searches of minors. The PimEyes chief executive, Giorgi Gobronidze, who is based in Tbilisi, Georgia, said that technical measures had been put in place to block such searches as part of a ‘no harm policy.'”

The Verge: Google begins prompting users to create passwordless passkeys by default

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The Verge: Google begins prompting users to create passwordless passkeys by default. “Google is making it easier for users to ditch passwords on their Google accounts in favor of passkeys — a fast, secure, and passwordless approach to logins that utilizes the pin, face, or fingerprint authentication built into your devices. Starting today, Google account users will be prompted to create a passkey for their account by default, sparing them from manually hunting through account settings for the setup process.”

Ars Technica: 23andMe says private user data is up for sale after being scraped

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Ars Technica: 23andMe says private user data is up for sale after being scraped. “Genetic profiling service 23andMe has commenced an investigation after private user data was scraped off its website. Friday’s confirmation comes five days after an unknown entity took to an online crime forum to advertise the sale of private information for millions of 23andMe users.”

WIRED: FBI Agents Are Using Face Recognition Without Proper Training

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WIRED: FBI Agents Are Using Face Recognition Without Proper Training. “THE US FEDERAL Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has done tens of thousands of face recognition searches using software from outside providers in recent years. Yet only 5 percent of the 200 agents with access to the technology have taken the bureau’s three-day training course on how to use it, a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) this month reveals. The bureau has no policy for face recognition use in place to protect privacy, civil rights, or civil liberties.”

The George Washington University: A Database from GW Law Informs Users on Litigation Relating to AI

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The George Washington University: A Database from GW Law Informs Users on Litigation Relating to AI. “Legal scholars and others familiar with databases such as those maintained by LexisNexis and Westlaw know that they report opinions from finished cases. The AI Litigation Database tracks cases from the time they are filed. The cases are searchable by keyword, the jurisdiction in which they were filed and area of application, among other terms. Application areas include employment, intellectual property, facial recognition and many more.”

Down the tubes: Common PVC pipes can hack voice identification systems (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

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University of Wisconsin-Madison: Down the tubes: Common PVC pipes can hack voice identification systems. “One type of security system that is gaining popularity is automatic speaker identification, which uses a person’s voice as a passcode. These systems, already in use for phone banking and other applications, are good at weeding out attacks that try to fake a user’s voice through digital manipulation. But digital security engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found these systems are not quite as foolproof when it comes to a novel analog attack. They found that speaking through customized PVC pipes — the type found at most hardware stores — can trick machine learning algorithms that support automatic speaker identification systems.”

New York Times: Eight Months Pregnant and Arrested After False Facial Recognition Match

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New York Times: Eight Months Pregnant and Arrested After False Facial Recognition Match. “Porcha Woodruff thought the police who showed up at her door to arrest her for carjacking were joking. She is the first woman known to be wrongfully accused as a result of facial recognition technology.”

Reuters: OpenAI’s Sam Altman launches Worldcoin crypto project

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Reuters: OpenAI’s Sam Altman launches Worldcoin crypto project. “Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, launches on Monday. The project’s core offering is its World ID, an account that only real humans can get. To get a World ID, a customer signs up to do an in-person iris scan using Worldcoin’s ‘orb’, a silver ball approximately the size of a bowling ball. Once the orb’s iris scan verifies the person is a real human, it creates a World ID.” I will not share my opinion on this endeavor with you because doing so would violate every obscenity ordinance in a 200-mile radius.

MIT News: How an “AI-tocracy” emerges

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MIT News: How an “AI-tocracy” emerges . “Caption:MIT economist Martin Beraja is co-author of a new research paper showing that China’s increased investments in AI-driven facial-recognition technology both help the regime repress dissent and may drive the technology forward, a mutually reinforcing condition the paper’s authors call an ‘AI-Tocracy.'”

New York Times: Barred From Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

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New York Times: Barred From Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition. “Facewatch, a British company, is used by retailers across the country frustrated by petty crime. For as little as 250 pounds a month, or roughly $320, Facewatch offers access to a customized watchlist that stores near one another share. When Facewatch spots a flagged face, an alert is sent to a smartphone at the shop, where employees decide whether to keep a close eye on the person or ask the person to leave.”