Emerging Tech

‘EarEcho’ Uses Your Ear to Unlock Your Phone

A new prototype technology called EarEcho uses modified wireless earbuds to authenticate smartphone users via their ear canal, researchers report.

Cybersecurity

IRS Testing Behavioral Analytics to Verify Online Users

The agency is piloting a proof-of-concept that will track how individual taxpayers interact with its online systems.

Emerging Tech

The Intelligence Community is Exploring Long-Range Biometric Identification 

A new IARPA program aims to build biometric technology that can identify people using cameras stationed on far off rooftops and unmanned aircraft.

Digital Government

Study: More than Half of Americans Trust Law Enforcement to Use Facial Recognition Responsibly

Pew Research Center’s study is the latest to conclude Americans are growing more comfortable with having their faces scanned.

Emerging Tech

TSA Launches Facial Recognition Pilot at Las Vegas Airport 

The agency will assess how the tech verifies travelers’ live facial images against pictures taken from travelers’ identity documents.

Cybersecurity

TSA kicks off facial recognition trial in Las Vegas airport

The Transportation Security Administration is testing its ability to match live photos of air passengers with travel documents using a proprietary algorithmic system.

Emerging Tech

DHS is Collecting Biometrics on Thousands of Refugees Who Will Never Enter the U.S.

Most refugees who apply for asylum in the U.S. never set foot in the country, but under an agreement with the United Nations, DHS and its partners can still build biometric profiles on them.

Emerging Tech

Facial Recognition Software Prompts Privacy, Racism Concerns in Cities and States

Some lawmakers are proposing to limit its use even as law enforcement officials and landlords are embracing it.

Emerging Tech

CBP Plans to Use Facial Recognition For ‘All Passenger Applications’

The agency is ramping up its use of biometric identification technology as part of a broader effort to overhaul its traveler processing systems.

Cybersecurity

Small business cuts coming amid NBIB merger

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, which is absorbing National Background Investigations Bureau expects to combine contracting offices and staff, while shrinking small business goals.

Emerging Tech

Senators Urge Homeland Security to Release Mandated Report on its Use of Biometrics

Lawmakers say its delay raises concerns about the Homeland Security Department's continued collection of facial recognition data.

Emerging Tech

The Hidden Challenges in Police Use of Facial Recognition Technology

The Orlando Police Department ended its pilot program involving facial recognition technology this month, saying the agency was unable to devote the necessary resources to the program.

Emerging Tech

How Facial Recognition is Changing CBP Operations

The tech is freeing up Customs and Border Protection employees—once they learned to trust it.

Ideas

FaceApp Is Everyone’s Problem

It feels good to call out people for being duped by the Russian app, but the individualist framing of privacy is the bigger culprit.

Emerging Tech

Army Goggles Will Feature Facial Recognition Tech ‘Very Soon’

A modified gamer headset will allow soldiers to see through a drone’s eyes, aim around corners, and identify the faces of enemies in their sights.

Digital Government

Experts Tell Congress Facial Recognition’s Bias Problem May Be Here to Stay

Despite significant improvements in the tech’s overall performance, he said, “it’s unlikely” researchers will ever make systems equally accurate across racial and other demographic lines.

Emerging Tech

ICE and the Ever-Widening Surveillance Dragnet

ICE agents have used facial-recognition technology on state driver’s-license photos, turning a public database into a de facto criminal database.

Emerging Tech

You No Longer Own Your Face

Students were recorded for research—and then became part of a data set that lives forever online, potentially accessible to anyone.