New Smartphone Report Released

Reconnaissance International is pleased to announce the release of its new publication – ‘Smartphones for Authentication’ – the only publication of its kind.

Smartphones are revolutionising the world of identity, thanks to their ubiquity, connectivity, and computing power. As a result, they have given over 80% of the world’s population (i.e. those people currently owning smartphones) the power, not previously available to them, to conduct camera-based and fingerprint biometric testing.

Smartphones are thus accelerating the move towards more standardised identity verification methods and are giving rise to technologies that simply didn’t exist before.

These technologies are based on the various embedded attributes of smartphones, including light sources, display screen attributes, fingerprint sensors, connectivity, and camera systems.

The current and potential role of these technologies are covered at length in the new report, along with any drawbacks as far as the identity management sector is concerned.

The report examines in-depth the two most popular biometric testing routines on smartphones:

Fingerprint sensors

The report considers both smartphone and payment card implications with regard to fingerprint technologies, for a number of reasons. Firstly, both have evolved to validate the identity of the consumer that uses them but, more importantly for this report, there are learning points that cross the boundaries between the two implementations.

Fingerprint sensor size is considered as an important factor in the ability of the smartphone to authenticate the user and the inexorable increase in processing power is also held out as an encouraging factor in the future development of smartphone authentication.

Camera-based

Smartphones now feature cameras designed specifically to cater for taking a ‘selfie’ of the user which has enabled the smartphone to be used for personal authentication.

The report explores several issues in the use of the smartphone’s camera being used as part of a biometric test. One topic investigated is the threat from the device being confounded by a flat, full-face portrait instead of a 3D surface. The report looks at the new technologies being introduced to give them some 3D facial recognition functionality.

The ‘Smartphones for Authentication’ report summarises the wide range of technologies underpinning the role of smartphones in the area of identity verification, with the aim of identifying further opportunities… as well as potential drawbacks.

Subscribers to any of our Newsletters can get this report with an introductory 25% discount.