VOLUME 8 – NO 10 / OCTOBER 2020
The Future of Biometrics is in the Palm of Your Hand As technologists seek out the strongest authentication technology that passes the no-touch COVID-19 test we take a look at one technology that uses your hand to identify you.
Your palm is unique: that particular combination of veins, lines and creases is like no other. That uniqueness makes it a prime candidate for use in the field of biometrics, joining other techniques such as fingerprint, facial and voice recognition. Palm ID is already being used in a few places around the world, including Jeju International Airport in South Korea. But recently, tech giant Amazon announced the launch of its system called Amazon One. Its initial roll-out is small: only at a couple of Amazon Go shops in Seattle, USA where shoppers can pay for goods quickly and easily. But there are big ambitions. ‘We plan to offer the service to third parties like retailers, stadiums and office buildings, so that more people can benefit from this ease and convenience,’ said Dilip Kumar, Vice President of Amazon’s physical retail business.
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In the same way as iris recognition uses mathematical pattern-recognition techniques on images of one or both of your irises, palm ID uses computer vision technology to scan the vein and line patterns of your palm to create a ‘palm signature’. You connect that palm signature to a payment card. Then you pay for items merely by holding your hand over a scanner. Combined with the ‘Just Walk Out’ experience of Amazon Go shops (which use cameras and sensors to bill you for what you pick up and walk out with) it’s the ultimate in frictionless shopping. You do not even need a phone. You simply walk in, grab what you want and wave your palm as you leave. It’s not only speedy and convenient – palm ID is also regarded as one of the most privacy-preserving forms of biometrics yet devised. Unlike facial recognition, your palms are not visible at a distance and so cannot be used to authenticate you without your permission. Naman Aggarwal, Asia Pacific policy counsel at digital rights organisation Access Now, says it’s a more accurate system, too. ‘All biometric techniques have different false acceptance rates and false rejection rates. Palm ID does seem like an improvement within the realm of biometrics.’ In this era of COVID-19, the case for biometrics is being pushed harder. With cash and PIN keypads deemed to be health hazards, frictionless payments and admission systems seem to be eminently sensible. So, it may not be too long before your palm could be used to assert your identity to speed you through passport control, enter the office and pay for goods at your local supermarket.
Thales and Zetes Renew e-Passport Contract with Belgium French aerospace, defence, transportation and secure ID company, Thales, and Belgian technology company, Zetes, will continue their collaboration to bring ePassports to Belgium. The new seven-year contract is a renewal of the two companies’ existing contract with the country, which covered the previous seven-year period. The new passport will be created with a secure data page made with polycarbonate and comes with a range of security features to help prevent forgery. These features include laserengraved pictures, and a laser-engraved passport number etched into the hinge and data page – which is believed to be a world first as a security measure. The chip in the data page will use digital security techniques to protect the individual’s personal information. The passport also has embedded data that can only be read with the help of UV light. Zetes signed the contract with the Belgian Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, acting as the leader of a broader consortium, of which Thales is a member. Thales will be responsible for producing the passport itself and expects to deliver around 550,000 passports every year for the duration of the contract. ‘To respect privacy and fight fraud, we have developed a unique passport design and modernised the data pages with rugged polycarbonate technology, making them extremely safe,’ said Pierre Thepaut, the European Sales VP for Thales Digital Identity and Security. Continued on page 4 >
Inside this Issue
1 The Future of Biometrics is in the Palm of Your Hand 1 Thales and Zetes Renew e-Passport Contract with Belgium 2 Is the Security Identity Industry Being Left Behind? 3 French Police Use Integrated Biometrics Scanners to Identify Disaster Victims 3 Tackling the Digital Identity Challenge in Buying and Selling Property 3 Bangladesh to Pursue Digital Land Management System 4 Thales to Provide Mobile Driving licences Driving licences to US State of Florida 4 IQ Structures Changes Structure 5 Paper-Based Voting to Make Comeback in US 2020 Elections 5 Japan Considering Online Marriage and Divorce Registrations 6 IHMA Steps Up to Partner The Holography Conference Online (THCO) 6 The ID and Secure Document Industry Debates its Future 7 Have Scientists Created a Pattern so Complicated it's Impossible to Duplicate? 7 Procurement Process Confusion Threatens Supply of Passports in Nepal 8 DDS 2021 – a Shift from Physical to Digital
2 ID & SECURE DOCUMENT NEWS | COMMENT
Is the Security Identity Industry Being Left Behind? ‘We’re going through the most radical shift in the definition of identity in human history.’ Those were Joshua M Marmol’s words during Reconnaissance’s Great ID Debate held online on 15 October. Joshua, Managing Director of GET Secure ID Corp, was referring to the shift from physical identity documents to our ID being represented by data stored on digital devices. This shift was happening before the COVID pandemic but it has gathered pace exponentially as people have turned to the internet for the supply of an increasing number of services, from banking to shopping.
The key issues raised during the debate were the security of ID data, the type of organisation that holds it and what it does with it. Both Ian and Joshua recognised the commitment to security in the traditional identity document community, manifested as an ethos shared by customer (governments) and supplier (identity document and card producers). As Joshua put it: ‘it’s part of our DNA to protect our ID’. But what can be done to engender in the digital identity world that same ethos that prioritises security above all else? Joshua argued strongly for standards that embed the requirement for protection and security in digital identity solutions. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) are already jointly working on a standard for mobile driving licences (ISO/IEC 18013) to ‘provide strong security and privacy features’, yet this draft standard excludes the security of data storage requirements.
The motion under discussion was ‘this house believes that we are rushing into an unknown digital identity future’. In proposing this motion, Ian Lancaster, Chairman of the Digital Document Security™ conference, argued that this exponential speeding up of the shift from physical to digital ID verification inherently means we’re rushing into this new world, which makes it unpredictable and therefore unknown. He took the ‘we’ in the motion to mean society in general. Perhaps more pertinently for the readers of ID & Secure Document News™, Joshua Marmol, in opposing the motion, took ‘we’ to mean this industry, the secured identity industry. In doing so, he argued that, far from rushing into the future, the industry is being left behind. He characterised the industry as the guardians of governmentheld personal identity information which is letting itself down – and by extension, letting down governments and citizenry – by not responding quickly enough to this radical shift, having failed to come to the digital table.
Given that until around 50 years ago detailed personal information was stored by governments in strong-room environments with public access only to life-cycle personal information, surely the equivalent is necessary in the digital world and so the requirements should be spelled out in the relevant international standards? The traditional ID security community needs to ensure its characteristic approach to security is embedded in the standards that are now being developed, or those that will be in future. But this industry also needs to find ways to restore its place at the digital ID table. Many established security printers have launched, or are developing, digital identity systems – which we encourage and applaud – but there is nonetheless a danger that it is the fleet-footed giants of Silicon Valley that will continue to set the pace in the digital ID world. And their ethos is not ‘security first’ but ‘we can do it, so we will do it’; security becomes an afterthought, an add-on. Is it too late to change this approach, to make an ethos organ transplant so we don’t again see hacks or other security breaches which steal millions of sets of personally identifiable information?
French Police Use Integrated Biometrics Scanners to Identify Disaster Victims Whilst nothing can replace the loss of a loved one, the fast and accurate identification of victims at the scene of a disaster can start the process of healing for victims’ families. Driven by this objective, a unit of the French police is investing in electronic identity technology to make its task more manageable. The Integrated Biometrics fingerprint scanners will allow the French police’s Disaster Victim Identification Squad (DVI) to identify the bodies found in natural and man-made disasters, including airplane crashes and terrorist attacks. The DVI, which operates under the direction of the Criminal Research Institute of the National Police, has selected the Integrated Biometrics Watson Mini fingerprint scanner for future missions. According to the DVI, the FBI-certified Watson Mini meets the accuracy and durability requirements of the investigation team. The Watson uses a Light Emitting Sensor (LES) film built to perform well in adverse conditions. The Watson is particularly good at identifying dirty fingerprints and post-mortem individuals. ‘The identification of victims is a major issue and must be done as quickly as possible to meet the legitimate expectations of
families and authorities,’ explained the DVI’s Major Laurent Tamisier. ‘The evolution of traditional post-mortem fingerprinting methods towards a biometric capture system allows us to meet this demand for rapid and reliable identification.’ ‘In the aftermath of these kinds of heartbreaking events, victim identification is the first and highest priority, both for the needs of the families and the investigators,’ added Integrated Biometrics Executive VP David Gerulski. ‘Our technology enables professionals to do their painful work under extraordinarily challenging conditions.’ This April, Integrated Biometrics teamed up with Prodigy Systems to facilitate the distribution of food and other resources to refugees in Yemen. Prodigy Systems is based in the country’s capital city of Sana’a and was asked to create a national registration and authentication system to ensure that humanitarian aid is distributed fairly. To that end, the system uses the Integrated Biometrics Five-0 ten print fingerprint scanner to verify the identities of heads of households and other adult family members. The mobile system is able to function in remote areas of the country with limited infrastructure.
Tackling the Digital Identity Challenge in Buying and Selling Property A new UK-based industry group aimed at tackling issues surrounding digital identity in conveyancing has been formed to address the need for an industry-wide approach to the question of assured digital identity verification. In the first meeting of the Digital Identity Group (DIG), held earlier this month the meeting chair, Stuart Young, set out the objectives: ‘Digital identity was becoming an elephant in the room within the home buying and selling process and it was increasingly clear that we needed to take action to move the conversation forward’. Originally anticipating 25-30 attendees, the meeting, which was held via video, hosted 74 people, with representatives from digital identity providers, regulators, government representatives, finance sector bodies and law firms. As the meeting discussed how a Digital Identity Trust Framework might work in practice, it became clear that a central
issue would be reliability of data and, as this comment from the floor suggests, the role that the government might play in providing it: ‘what we’re talking about is reliability of data. And who holds the most reliable and credible source of data for the UK population… government! There needs to be some consideration of the release of data for digital identity providers to tap into’. There was also a recognition of the role that a government agent might play in setting standards for the use of personally identifiable digital information: ‘there should be a standard to which providers are recognised, as identity is not a competitive issue, it’s a legal requirement’. The meeting concluded with comments about the importance of digital security as new technologies are introduced: ‘the wider adoption of technology is a necessity; look at HMLR’s (Her Majesty’s Land Registry) latest decisions around electronic signing of documents… ultimately that needs a reliable identity element to make it work’.
Bangladesh to Pursue Digital Land Management System The Bangladesh government has recently approved a Tk 3.37 billion (almost $4 million) project to prepare a digital database for ensuring a transparent land management system in the country. Land management is of large and growing interest to the ID and secure document industry as it combines the need to verify a person’s identity and uniquely link it to secure land records – such as title deeds and tax payment certificates. In a ceremony presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) endorsed the land digitisation project. Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister stressed the need for bringing the countrywide sub-registrar offices under the digital system to further ease the land registration process and so improve the service to citizens. According to Planning Minister M A Mannan, a digital land database will be prepared under the project, and every plot will be characterised by its attributes. It is hoped that once the project is properly implemented, the number of land-related disputes and other incidents will be reduced significantly, along with the decrease in the influence of middlemen. Responsibility for the project rests with the Ministry of Land, which will implement the plot-based national digital land-zoning project by June 2024 entirely with government funding. The project will cover some 56,348 mouzas (administrative areas) in all 64 districts of the country. Satellite images will be used for the digital land-zoning, while mouza maps will also be digitised. According to the project proposal, it will ensure collection, scanning, digitisation, database creation, plot checking, mouza map geo-referencing and matching, and field checking of the sheets of maps. Aimed at eradicating widespread corruption in the land management of Bangladesh, another similar project was started back in 2012 but was later abandoned for unknown reasons.
VOLUME 8 – NO 10 | OCTOBER 2020
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Thales to Provide Mobile Driving licences to US State of Florida Thales will supply the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles with mobile driving licence verification services, as well as a mobile driving licence solution for residents. From 2021, Florida residents will be able to apply for new mobile driving licences that are easily accessible on a variety of devices, including smartphones and tablets. These mobile licences meet the national and international standards from the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) and the International Organization for Standardization, meaning they can be used across the US and internationally. In preparation for the roll-out in Florida, Thales conducted mobile driving licence pilots across multiple US states through a partnership and grant awarded in 2016 by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. The mobile driving licences will have the same validity as their traditional counterparts to verify identity, including proof of age and privileges. They also provide an additional role as a strong authentication tool, enabling Floridians to securely prove who they are online for a variety of services. To complement the traditional use of driving licences to prove their identity, Florida residents will be able to simply activate their mobile identification application, select the type of verification needed, and hold up their mobile device. The mobile device never leaves the owner’s hand, making it a contact-free and convenient way to show ID. The mobile driving licences host a secure digitised credential whose authenticity can be checked, rather than simply displaying a digital image of a driving licence that could be easily manipulated. For stronger privacy, users of mobile driving licences control what information is displayed from the app depending on the context. For example, to enter a casino it only needs to show that the individual is old enough and the mobile driving licence will just display that information – not the individual’s name, date of birth, or address. Thales supports state identity programmes for 11 other US states and five Canadian provinces.
4 ID & SECURE DOCUMENT NEWS | IN THE NEWS
IQ Structures Changes Structure Eight years after its creation, the IQ Structures business is transforming into a holding structure. The holding company IQS Group sro now has three subsidiaries, each dedicated to a specific area of business. The original brand IQ Structures will continue to focus on the strongest part of the group to date – protection against counterfeiting. The company, which produces holographic security features for polycarbonate identification documents, banknotes and securities, will address its main target groups, which are governments and state and private security printers, under the brand IQ Structures. The division dealing in unique nanostructured optics will form a new company and operate under the name IQS NANOPTIQS. A third company, developing a completely new approach to 3D nano-printing technology, continues under the name IQS nano. ‘3D nano-printing, security and the optical part of our business group operate in markets with different business conditions and habits. Individual companies will now be able to enter into business relationships in accordance with the specifics of their business segments and develop independently,’ said CEO of parent company IQS Group Tomáš Těthal. At present, about 70% of IQS Group's turnover is made from security features, and about 30% is NANOPTIQS. 3D nano-printing is in the development stage of a new generation of nano-printers for mass production.
The transition to a holding structure is part of a long-term strategy, with the business separated into companies that have teams and resources fully focused on their key area of business. ‘Currently, we provide high-end optical effects for protection of various documents and products. In securing ID cards, passports and banknotes, we want to be stable among the three largest companies in the world,’ explained Petr Franc, CEO of IQ Structures. The new company IQS NANOPTIQS takes its name from the nano-structured optics it designs, develops and produces for the international LED lighting market. David Brož, CEO of the new company, added: ‘we were among the first in the world to master the development and production of micro- and nano-structured diffractive optics. We have opened this market segment and are gradually expanding it. In the future, we want to remain number one in this direction on the global market. Its potential is in hundreds of millions of euros’. The third company, IQS nano, plans to use its more than 20 years of experience in synthetic holography, micro-optics and lithographic technologies to develop a technique for writing three-dimensional objects with a resolution of hundreds of nanometres. The companies IQS Group, IQ Structures, IQS NANOPTIQS and IQS nano are based in Řež near Prague, Czech Republic. They also share another establishment – a nano-centre in Brno – and IQS Group now holds a total of 23 patents and patent applications.
Thales and Zetes e-Passport (Continued) Thales recently delivered a similar ePassport to Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). The company first announced that it was developing the document last August, when the Ministry placed an order for 15 million passports. The new document was technically delivered on 8 July, though it was not officially launched until an inauguration ceremony on 5 August. The ePassports are part of the Thai government’s Thailand 4.0 mission to build a modern digital economy, and were ordered through the DGM Consortium, of which Thales is a member. Thales has already provided technology training for 250 local experts and plans to train another 500 as part of the information transfer process. The new Thai ePassport stores the owner’s biometric data on a secure, embedded chip, while the data page features an embossed signature and a perforated photo of the document holder.
The data page is made of flexible polycarbonate material, with a true colour UV picture of the Wat Arun temple on the reverse side and other images embossed with Thales’ Secure Surface technology on the front. Secure Surface technology is designed to prevent counterfeiting and creates reflective and animation effects when the document is viewed at different angles. Thales and MOFA worked remotely to complete the project during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Thai ePassport programme is one of the largest biometric ID fulfilment orders for Thales, and the company relied on its acquisition of Gemalto to ensure that the ePassports were compliant with the Personal Data Protection Act of Thailand, under the revised specifications of Thailand 4.0.
Paper-Based Voting to Make Comeback in US 2020 Elections Much has been made of the role that foreign government co-ordinated social media influencers made on the outcome of the US 2016 elections. But in response to reports of foreign intrusions into state voter registration systems, this year’s election will see more states using paperbased voting systems to prevent fraud. From an ID and secure document perspective the voting process can be summarised in four steps: 1. That the vote was correctly recorded
2. That the vote is securely linked to the voter’s identity 3. That the voter was eligible to vote
4. That the vote-voter identity link is unique. Recognising these critical steps in ensuring election integrity, experts recommend three ways to protect the integrity of voting systems: verifiable paper ballots, a secure chain of custody of the ballots, and statistically sound audits after the election. Together, these steps can give voters confidence that their votes have been recorded correctly and counted appropriately. In May 2018, the Senate Intelligence Committee released an interim report on the US Department of Homeland Security’s response to Russian governmentsponsored efforts to undermine confidence in the US voting process. The committee reported that the Russian government was able to penetrate election systems
in at least 18 states, and that in some of those states, infiltrators ‘could have altered or deleted voter registration data’. The committee conjectured that the infiltrators were on a fishing expedition and that ‘they were gathering information and testing capabilities for a future attack’. In 2019, the US House of Representatives passed an act which establishes safeguards for voting equipment and requires the use of paper-based voting systems. The bill would provide millions of dollars in grants for states to assess risks and take steps to make voting more secure. As of June 2020, the Senate was still considering various aspects of the VoteSafe Act. ‘It’s heartening to have state and national leaders recognising that the best, most progressive way to both modernise and protect the sanctity of our constitutional right to a secret ballot is by moving ahead with paper-based voting,’ says Tom Howard, paper manufacturer Domtar’s Vice President of Government Relations. ‘The paper ballot format, read by an optical scanner (or another similar method), is the perfect marriage of security and technology. It has the added benefit of being verifiable, for example, during a vote recount.’ The return of paper-based voting represents a swing away from the electronic and touch-screen voting changes that followed the 2000 elections and Florida’s infamous ‘hanging chads’.
For example, the state of Georgia has installed a multi-million dollar paper-based voting system that will check the accuracy of vote counts. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says the new system should increase voter confidence and reduce complaints about vote tampering. In fact, a recent poll conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed a majority of voters preferred paper ballots. A quick review of the different voting systems adopted by US states, who are free to choose their own electoral system under the constitution, suggests that most voting systems will combine the ease of convenience to vote digitally on 3 November at a voting location, with a paper record that gives the voter confidence and can be part of a paper trail. The situation with regard to voter registration and election integrity is a microcosm of the debate in our industry, surrounding the move away from paperbased ID documents towards digital and ultimately virtual identity. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learnt from the move away from paper ballots in response to the ‘hanging chads’ episode only to return to a hybrid of paper-electronic systems some years later. In response to the pandemic the industry is, quite reasonably, accelerating the move to digital and virtual identities – but are we in danger of losing the degree of confidence and traceability that paperbased documents can give?
Japan Considering Online Marriage and Divorce Registrations Japan’s Justice Minister, Yoko Kamikawa, has announced that the government is considering the introduction of online procedures to register marriages and divorces. ‘We’re considering scrapping (the requirement for) the use of seals to register marriages and divorces,’ Kamikawa told a news conference. ‘We’re carrying out studies to make a variety of administrative procedures (available) online.’ The requirement can be scrapped since official seals registered with local authorities have not been needed for such documents, ministry officials said. Individuals generally use two types of ‘hanko’ personal seals, with one registered with local authorities for use in documents such as land registration and the other unregistered.
Every Japanese person possess a personal seal called a hanko (or sometimes inkan). While in western nations and in almost any other part of the world, hand written signatures are used for applications and other documents, in Japan, the hanko plays the role of the signature. Every important document in an office, bank, etc. needs a personal stamp usually made in red ink. In all the application forms used in Japan, we could see a space in a round or square shape with the symbol 印 asking for a personal seal. The use of hanko seals has been criticised as outdated and condemned for necessitating face-to-face interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has instructed government officials to draw up plans to do away with the tradition for administrative documents.
At present, hanko use is required for 44 types of administrative procedures under the Justice Ministry’s jurisdiction, according to Kamikawa. Of them, the ministry is looking at abolishing its use for 35 types, including for registering marriages. Since 2004, municipalities have been allowed to accept online applications for marriage, divorce and other documents related to the family register system, but none has so far implemented this, the officials said. Digital signatures and electronic certificates would be used for identification if these procedures go online, they said. ‘We are promoting digitalisation to improve the convenience of people and overall efficiency as a major pillar of the Suga government,’ Kamikawa concluded.
IN THE NEWS | VOLUME 8 – NO 10 | OCTOBER 2020
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IHMA Steps Up to Partner The Holography Conference Online (THCO) The International Hologram Manufacturer’s Association (IHMA) will be holding its AGM and Excellence in Holography Awards as part of THCO (8-9 December). Appealing to people involved in anticounterfeiting from all over the world, this truly international event will take place for three hours a day over two days. Individual presentations as well as panel style formats will allow the audience to be completely involved in the conversation, in the form of Q&As, polls and audience-led discussion. There will be plenty of opportunity for networking as well as the chance to get up to date with all the developments within the industry from the comfort of your home or office. In amongst the presentations, discussions and Q&As, The Excellence in Holography Awards will build into a sparkling online awards ceremony and there will be plenty of opportunity to see presentations from runners-up in the competition leading to the disclosure of the winner towards the end of the conference on 9 December. At the end of the first day of the conference (8 December) the IHMA will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM), giving all members a chance to review the work of the association and plan for its future. To allow members of the IHMA an opportunity to attend the AGM without signing up for THCO, the event will be held on a separate platform.
The ID and Secure Document Industry Debates its Future At a time of rapid change in the use of digital identity within our industry and in society at large, Reconnaissance International hosted the next episode of its online Great Debates to consider the motion that ‘this house believes that we are rushing into an unknown digital identity future’. The event, which took place on 15 October across multiple time zones, was moderated by Francis Tuffy, Editor of ID & Secure Document News™, and brought together two stalwarts of the industry: Ian Lancaster, Chairman of the Digital Document Security™ conference, and Joshua Marmol, Managing Director of GET Secure ID Corp for GET Group’s Latin American business division. Attendees from all five continents listened to Ian’s opening proposition that gave a glimpse into a dystopian future. Using HAL, a fictional artificial intelligence character in Arthur C Clarke’s Space Odyssey series, as an exemplar, Ian’s version of the ‘unknown digital identity future’ is one in which our identity has been digitised and stored along with all personal attributes – allowing corporations to decide what is best for us, and governments to control us, using machine generated algorithms.
The future will always be on the other side of a fault line in time and the debate managed to highlight many of the ‘what we know now’ and ‘what might happen next’ arguments. But whatever course the digital identity future takes, let’s hope it isn’t as brutal as HAL’s ‘decision’ to kill the astronauts in order to protect and continue what it was programmed to accomplish.
Your chance to choose the motion for the next Great ID Debate
The next Great Identity Debate, scheduled for November, will have a motion chosen by popular vote. The shortlist is being drawn up and currently includes: This house believes that:
In Ian’s digital dystopia our identity has become a commodity, to be bought, sold and exploited.
Face recognition is a risk to privacy
Joshua’s opposing speech accepted that many aspects of the digital identity future are unknown but his vision of things to come are more benign. Quoting sources from consultancy and government agencies, Joshua pointed to the untapped economic and societal good that can be achieved by the proper implementation of universal unique digital identities.
Identity cards safeguard the citizen
Paraphrasing Joshua: ‘Ian says the house is on fire and we need to quench the flames, I say it’s hot and we need to control the temperature’. Where the two agreed was on the need for the ID and secure document industry to establish a common code of practice that could then inform government policy in the form of standards and regulations. After opening arguments and rebuttals, questions from the virtual audience were put to the two protagonists. The questions ranged from challenging the presenters to define who the ‘we’ are in the motion to questioning what right governments have to package up and sell ID data to corporations for commercial exploitation.
6 ID & SECURE DOCUMENT NEWS | EVENTS
The way the debate was organised meant that there were two rounds of voting: agreeing or disagreeing with the motion. One poll was at the beginning of the debate which was not declared until after the second round at the end of the event. The results gave an interesting insight into the ebb and flow of the debate, with 75% agreeing and 25% disagreeing before the debate, and a slight swing away from the motion, with 68% agreeing and 32% disagreeing, afterwards.
National databases should operate in isolation A national DNA register is the basis for a secure society The individual should own and carry their own data There is no future for physical ID documents Governments must stop issuing physical ID documents and only record births digitally Commercial organisations should not be permitted to handle government identity data. Before the list goes live for voting, you can add to it by sending your suggestion(s) to francis@recon-intl.com. To relive the Great ID Debate, please follow this link https://securedocumentnews.com/ debate/
Have Scientists Created a Pattern so Complicated it's Impossible to Duplicate? The act of marking a series of codes onto a group of ID or other secure documents makes it easier to identify each document and is the basis for many coding systems. Unfortunately, it also makes it relatively easy to predict the pattern of the serialisation or to simply duplicate an existing code if your intention is malevolent. In a recently published open access paper ‘Optical micro-resonator arrays of fluorescence-switchable diarylethenes with unreplicable spectral fingerprints’, researchers from the University of Tsukuba in Japan offer the prospect of a pattern that, according to the researchers, is impossible to duplicate or forge; a feat that could help to defeat document fraud. The key to these patterns lies in a two-step verification system that incorporates both micropatterns and resonance. Resonance is a wave phenomenon that allows energy to be stored as a standing wave rather than transmitted as a progressive wave. Those of us old enough to remember rewritable CDs (CD-RW) will appreciate the technical breakthrough in having a compact disc format that could be written, read, erased, and rewritten several times. To apply this principle to anti-fraud data storage and rewritable memory devices, the research group used chromic materials, where the dichromatic colours can be switched by external stimuli. By embedding additional individual information in each pixel, a much higher level security system than the binary zero/one data array was realised. To achieve this, the group proposed that photo-switchable optical micro-resonators, made from a fluorescent photochromic organic material, could be adapted as secure, rewritable optical memories. The micro-resonator structures developed for the research are similar in construction to a traditional whispering gallery, where two large, concave dishes are placed at opposite ends of a long hall. A whisper into one of these plastic dishes can be heard clearly by someone standing in the other one down the hall. Recognising this similarity, the team from Tsukuba named their technique, ‘whispering gallery mode’, (WGM). Photoluminescence of the micro-resonators can be switched on and off repeatedly by means of irradiation that alternates between ultraviolet and visible light. The shape of the micro-resonator varies from a sphere to an oblate ellipsoid and hemisphere, depending on the selfassembly process, and the WGM spectral pattern depends sensitively on the form and
structure of the resonators. By assembling the resonators onto a micro-patterned substrate that alternates between areas that tend to attract or repel water (hydrophobic/ hydrophilic) allows a highly integrated array of micro-resonators as dense as millions of pixels per square centimetre to be built. The anti-fraud micropatterns created by the Tsukuba researchers are designed to be used for authentication purposes. Security measures such as these often embed physical functions into the identity document during the manufacturing process. In this case, researchers were able to embed the resonance produced by standing lightwaves into a microscopic image. To create the patterned microscopic image, described in the journal Materials Horizons, the researchers embedded a lightwave fingerprint under a 1mm wide drawing of Mona Lisa containing millions of evenly spaced pixels per square centimetre. Within each of the millions of pixels sits a WGM fingerprint, a unique colour signature created in a microscopic, rounded cavity with reflective surfaces. Each of these reflective cavities has a unique shape. Shapes can vary from elliptical, spherical, oblate-spherical, to hemispherical, but they are always rounded and always have a reflective surface that will facilitate the whisper chamber effect. Like human fingerprints, no two of these cavities are identical. Into each uniquely shaped cavity, the Tsukuba researchers placed a microscopic droplet of fluorescent dye that is chemically sensitive to light. Once the dye was in place, the researchers shined visible and ultraviolet (UV) light onto the dye, in a random, unpredictable manner. The lightwaves reflected inside each cavity, similar to the way sound reflects in a whisper gallery, which caused the dye molecules to react. The variety of cavity shapes combined with the exposure of unique patterns of light applied to the fluorescent dye, result in a unique colour signature within each pixel. The final step taken by the researchers was to cover the entire array of millions of WGM fingerprints with another material. This is the material they used to paint the tiny, visible image of Mona Lisa. The research group believes that in the future, governments and businesses could utilise patterns, created through this process, to combat ID and secure document fraud and might be used to draw your picture on your credit card and driving licence.
Procurement Process Confusion Threatens Supply of Passports in Nepal The Department of Passports has made a recommendation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to halt the ePassports bid after it declared the four bidders non-compliant. At the same time, officials warned of a passport shortage – with stocks likely to last just a few months. The Department of Passports wants to scrap the ePassports bid because it claims that none of the bidders submitted the required documents. The department has around 360,000 passports in stock, but with the decision to postpone the tender it may have to rush the bidding process to avoid severe shortages, officials said. ‘After the four firms who had participated in the bidding process failed to meet the criteria, we disqualified them and recommended the Foreign Ministry to call a third tender immediately giving only 21 days for prospective bidders to submit their bid documents so that we could avoid passports shortage,’ a member of the bid evaluation team, told the Kathmandu Post. Earlier in the year, in another government department, Nepalese tax officials warned that the tax authorities had run out of excise duty stamps meant for imported liquor. This was after the Supreme Court issued an interim order last year, putting a halt to the procurement process for new stickers through an international competitive bid. The tax authorities had planned to procure around 8 billion stickers for use over the next two years. As you can imagine, there is now uncertainty on how the passport procurement process will move ahead considering the latest confusion and the fact that Nepal is in the process of building its own printworks. It could have huge ramifications as the government may not be able to ensure the availability of passports for a large number of migrant workers and students who go abroad for work or study each year.
VOLUME 8 – NO 10 | OCTOBER 2020
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DDS 2021 – a Shift from Physical to Digital The Digital Document Security™ (DDS) conference is a response to the introduction of digital systems into the secured document field – from the use of smartphones to authenticate physical documents or act as carriers for ID documents, to the deployment of artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain for security document applications. Ironically, the conference itself is now following the same route from physical to digital, as the conference organisers, Reconnaissance, have announced that DDS 2021 will be an online event (3-4 February 2021), allowing participants from across the globe to attend without the cost and inconvenience of travelling in these days of COVID-19. And as the physical event was scheduled to have been in Vienna, the world centre of coffee and cake culture, you might say that what you lose in strudels you gain in convenience – or is that stretching the analogy of the trade-off between the benefits of physical and digital a bit too far!
DDS 2021 connects the communities at the interface between these physical and digital domains of document security to create a forum to meet, share ideas and establish mutual understanding for innovation in this important field. People involved in the digital transaction, identity and authentication communities, as well as specifiers, designers, producers and issuers of secure documents, will find DDS 2021 a valuable forum for learning, networking and exploring possibilities. DDS 2021 will also help the established secure document community come to understand the disruptive potential of the digital world. In the run up to the conference, Reconnaissance is staging a series of Great ID Debates, that take on some of the biggest issues in the digital document security industry and debate them in an online forum.
The first debate examined the motion that ‘this house believes that we are rushing into an unknown digital future’. The lively exchanges between proposer Ian Lancaster, Chairman of the Digital Document Security conference, and Joshua Mármol, Managing Director of GET Secure ID Corp, opposing the motion, stimulated strong audience participation in the Q&A section of the event. The next debate is scheduled for the middle of December. If you would like to suggest a topic to be debated please contact francis@recon-intl.com. And don’t panic, yet! If you would like to present at the conference there’s still time to click here and send your proposal for consideration. With no hotel or travel costs to consider, DDS 2021 would be the ideal opportunity for a group of colleagues to gather at this truly global event for the industry. To register click here.
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