Ignition Innovation, a new technology startup, has forged a partnership with a UK facial verification company, iProov, to bring biometric facial identification to TT.

iProov is confident that its technology avoids the greatest vulnerability of facial verification systems, known problems with people of colour.

Daniel Molina, iProov’s VP for Latin America, says the software has been tested in the UK, Singapore, Mexico and Brazil without problems.

Molina made sure to clarify the difference between facial recognition and verification.

"We don't do recognition," he explained. "Facial recognition is give me a picture and tell me who that is.

"iProov doesn't do that. We can validate a picture and verify that against the person seeking access.

"Recognition happens without your consent. Verification is always done with your consent, and you are always part of the process.”

How it works

In the iProov system, as many as 250 discrete data measurements are made of a participant's face and stored as an encrypted data hash – a string of code – that's only readable by the company's software. It is not possible to reconstruct a person's face from the measurements stored in the biometric hash.

"In matching the stored biometric data with a verification scan, we do a one-to-one match. We do not do one-to-many."

iProov does not have a database of photos stored to operate its system: there is only a collection of biometric hash codes, each associated with a single user ID.

The system doesn't even require a particularly good camera to function.

"As long as your phone was made after 1994, we're good.

"It's not the quality of the image, it's the measurements that we can take based on that image, because we're not trying to print an eight-by-ten glossy. The system just needs to be able to take measurements adequately, so that it can extrapolate out the facial furniture."

"Facial furniture" refers to any changes to the user's face, including facial hair or a new pair of glasses. The only thing that stymies iProov's recognition is sunglasses, which obscure the eyes.

Growing value of facial recognition

Molina believes the iProov system is more relevant than ever now as a response to the rise in synthetic ID fraud.

Synthetic ID fraud is a compilation of stolen data that's used to build completely fake identities that can be complete fictions or, more rarely, based on an actual person. These identities can exist for years, building credit lines and online presence before cashing in.

Molina said 18 months ago, the percentage of synthetic identities used in cybercrime was less than one per cent. In Brazil alone, that percentage has risen to 30 per cent of cyberattacks, exploiting systems that are not hardened against these invented identities.

[caption id="attachment_977737" align="alignnone" width="857"] Daniel Molina, iProov’s VP for Latin America. [/caption]

Ignition Innovation's website was, Justin Lett admitted, a work in progress.

The company started with plans to create a governance platform and to de