News in Brief

Former Comoros President Found Guilty of Passport Fraud

A court in Comoros has sentenced Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, ex-president of the Indian Ocean archipelago nation, to life in prison for selling passports to stateless people living in the Gulf.

According to Tanzania Daily News, Sambi, who is a political rival of incumbent President Azali Assoumani, was sentenced by the State Security Court, a special judicial body whose rulings cannot be appealed, after he was convicted of selling the passports.

Sambi, 64, who led Comoros between 2006 and 2011, enacted a law in 2008 allowing the sale of passports for high fees. The controversial scheme was aimed to give nationality to the so-called Bidoon – an Arab minority numbering in the tens of thousands who cannot obtain citizenship.

According to public prosecutor, Ali Mohamed Djounaid, the former president embezzled $1.8 billion under the fraudulent scheme – more than the gross domestic product of the impoverished nation.

Sambi’s lawyer Jean-Gilles Halimi, however, refuted the accusations, saying no evidence had been provided for the missing monies and no bank accounts had been put forward to suggest a crime.

Sambi refused to attend the trial on the grounds that there were no guarantees he would be judged fairly. He briefly appeared once with his defence asking the judge to recuse himself, since he had previously sat on the panel that decided to indict him. The former leader, who was originally charged with corruption, had already spent four years in prison before he faced a trial. He was previously placed under house arrest for allegedly disturbing public order.

Coat of Biometric ID Invisibility

To the naked eye, it looks like any other camouflage pattern coat. But to artificial intelligence security cameras, it’s an invisibility cloak that effectively conceals the person wearing it. The coat’s camouflage prints escape detection from visible light cameras and its embedded thermal devices emit an unusual heat pattern that allows the coat to avoid thermal camera detection.

Developed by a group of four graduate students from China’s Wuhan University, the InvisDefense coat was one of the projects that attained the first prize at the ‘Huawei Cup,’ an inaugural cybersecurity innovation contest supported by Chinese technological giant Huawei.

When the students tested the coat on campus security cameras, the accuracy of pedestrian detection was reduced by 57 %. Researchers said that one of the main difficulties of developing the coat was striking a balance between fooling both the camera and the human eye.

‘We had to use an algorithm to design a least conspicuous image that could render camera vision ineffective,’ said Wei Hui, the computer science graduate student who designed the coat’s core algorithm.

Privacy concerns were on the Wuhan University team’s mind when they designed the InvisDefense coat, which will be sold for about 500 yuan ($71).

‘Security cameras using AI technology are everywhere. They pervade our lives,’ said Wei. ‘Our privacy is exposed under machine vision. We designed this product to counter malicious detection, to protect people’s privacy and safety in certain circumstances.’ According to Wei, the team’s future research plans include making other objects ‘invisible’ to AI cameras – such as inanimate items and moving cars. They are also looking into circumventing other types of cameras, such as those that use remote sensing, satellites or aircraft.

The Risks of Emotion Analysis Biometrics

The UK ID data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), has released a statement warning organisations to assess the public risks of using emotion analysis technologies for ID.

Emotion analysis technologies process data such as gaze tracking, sentiment analysis, facial movements, gait analysis, heartbeats, facial expressions and skin moisture.

Emotion analysis relies on collecting, storing and processing a range of personal data, including subconscious behavioural or emotional responses, and in some cases, special category data. This kind of data use is far more risky than traditional biometric technologies that are used to verify or identify a person.

Application examples include monitoring the physical health of workers by offering wearable screening tools, or using visual and behavioural methods including body position, speech, eyes and head movements.

The inability of algorithms that are not sufficiently developed to detect emotional cues means there’s a risk of systemic bias, inaccuracy and even discrimination.

As well as warning about the risks around emotion analysis technologies, the ICO is developing guidance on the wider use of biometric technologies. These technologies may include facial, fingerprint and voice recognition, which are already successfully used in industry.

The ICO’s biometric guidance, which is due to be published in Spring 2023, will aim to further empower and help businesses, as well as highlight the importance of data security.

NIST Drafts Revised Guidelines for Digital Identification

The US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has drafted updated guidelines to help combat fraud and cybercrime while fostering equity and preserving fundamental human rights.

The guidelines support risk-informed management of people’s personas online – their ‘digital identities’ – often required to engage in everyday digital transactions from banking to ordering groceries.

The draft publication, formally titled ‘Digital Identity Guidelines’ ¹ covers technical requirements for establishing and authenticating digital representations of real-life people – such as employees of a government contractor or members of the general public. The draft guidelines aim to help organizations manage risks associated with digital interactions while making it easier for individuals to use digital identities successfully, including when applying for government services.

They also include privacy requirements and offer considerations for fostering equity and the usability of digital identity solutions, as well as their supporting technologies and processes, placing the risks faced by individuals accessing services alongside risks to the organisations that operate those services.

NIST is accepting comments on the draft until March 24, 2023. NIST will host a virtual workshop on 12 January 2023, to provide details on the major changes to the guidelines and the comment process. Interested parties can register online to attend.

1 - https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-63/4/draft.