March #biometricchat Recap: A Conversation on Biometrics with Cyrille Bataller from Accenture

We had the pleasure of inviting Cyrille Bataller from Accenture as our guest for March’s #biometricchat tweet chat yesterday. There was a lot of material to cover in the short time we had scheduled for the chat (which started a few minutes late because of some technical difficulties) but we were able to learn a lot about the characteristics of large biometric deployments and how multi-modal biometrics helps to increase project accuracy plus updates on the European Visa Information System deployment,  the importance of fusing biographic attributes and fuzzy matching into the fusion equation, the importance of interoperability in deployments, and how civil liberties affect biometric deployments and why they may prohibit biometrics from wider adoption in commonwealth countries.

Some of the more important pieces of knowledge that Cyrille shared with us in the chat included:

On the use of multi-modal biometrics:

“Multi-modal biometrics allow accuracy at scale. they also ensure resistance to fraud (hard to spoof multi-biometrics)”
“Multi-modal biometrics allow accuracy at scale. they also ensure resistance to fraud (hard to spoof multi-biometrics)”

On the topic of fuzzy matching into the fusion equation:

“Using the same solution to match across multimodal biometrics, on a record per record basis, is more powerful.”
“It is called score-level fusion – aggregating and comparing the match scores across all data elements – for each record.”

On the European Visa Information System:

“All 27 Schengen countries are introducing biometrics visas, capturing applicants’ fingerprints and face in consular posts.”
“By October 2014, all 27 Schengen countries will have switched to 100% biometric visas in consulates and at the border.”

On the importance of interoperability in biometric system deployments:

“There are two ways to look at interoperability: to ensure open loop operations, and to future-proof solutions.”
“Open loop operations clearly require interoperability, so each country can read passports from other countries etc.”
“But even for closed-loop solutions such as voting or bank customer ID, interoperability plays a role to prevent vendor lockin”

On the issue of civili liberties and privacy inhibiting biometric deployments in commonwealth countries:

“Public acceptance of biometric solutions is directly linked to the benefits that people get from these solutions.”
“Essential to think about data privacy from the get go, to dispel myths and to educate about benefits. And to offer opt-in.”
“But indeed opt-in is key, as individuals’ sensitivity to privacy varies widely. There are additional measures such as privacy-by-design, invented by Anne Cavoukian, and privacy impact assessments, such as published by US-VISIT.”
“Biometrics, employed wisely, can enhance privacy, and help protect individuals’ identities.”
“The key is to help individuals conveniently assert their identity, while preserving their privacy and right to anonymity.”

A complete copy of the transcript can be found on our Storify account here: https://bit.ly/107l46Y

Special thanks to Cyrille for lending us his time for the chat and sharing information and knowledge about the topics. We will have information posted here soon on our next #biometricchat tweet chat, tentatively scheduled for mid-April.

If you have any idea for a chat topic, please drop an email to marketing@m2sys.com