News in Brief

Finland Tests New Digital Travel Documents

The Finnish Border Guard has announced that all Finnish nationals on Finnair flights to and from the UK will be able to test a voluntary new digital travel document – Digital Travel Credentials (DTC).

From between 4 and 36 hours prior to a flight to the UK, interested candidates would have to download the FIN DTC Pilot digital travel document app, register with the police, and submit their data to the Finnish Border Guard.

By having their photo taken and comparing it to the one stored in their DTC, individuals can use the digital passport to verify their identity at Helsinki Airport.

‘The DTC is a digital version of the physical passport and is equally reliable. It allows smooth and fast border crossings without compromising security,’ the announcement from Border Guard states. ‘The European Commission, in cooperation with the member states, is developing the DTC as part of a broad digital identity policy package that includes a number of digital services.’ 

The DTC is a partnership between Finland and Croatia. The digital passport will be tested at Zagreb International Airport later this year. The opportunity for Finnish citizens to test the passport will be between now and February 2024.

The digital passport should be an opportunity for passengers to get through checkpoints quicker than when using traditional passport documents.

Lack of Standards Prompts US to Push Back mDL Deadline

The US Transport Security Administration (TSA) officials say they want to temporarily make it legal for people to use a mobile driving licence (mDL), even if it doesn’t comply with REAL ID rules after 2025, when physical state IDs are mandated to comply with the rules.

A summary on the Federal Register – the daily journal of the US Government – explains that the ‘(TSA) is proposing to amend the REAL ID regulations to waive, on a temporary and state, by-state basis, the regulatory requirement that mobile or digital driving licences or identification cards must be compliant with REAL ID requirements to be accepted by Federal agencies for official purposes, as defined by the REAL ID Act, when full enforcement of the REAL ID Act and regulations begins on 7 May 2025.’ 

REAL ID is a federal standard for what every state must put on licences in order to make forgeries and fraud more easily recognisable across state lines. Deadlines to impose the standards have been repeatedly postponed.

The current waiver to the regulations has been given, in part, because comprehensive mDL standards do not yet exist, according to the TSA, which is administering the update.

The deadline for individual states to comply with issuing REAL IDs is the same for both digital and physical documents at the moment. But the TSA has posted a notice saying it wants to temporarily exempt mDLs from states that have legalised them or which have been granted a TSA waiver for updated cards.

Citizens carrying an mDL would still need a REAL ID-compliant ID card. Both would have to be shown to federal agencies including the TSA at airports.

Details, including how to comment of the proposal, can be found here.

Research Paper on Biometric Mobile Authentication

Smartphones now hold immense amounts of sensitive personal information and are themselves being used as authentication tools, making security a pressing concern. Researchers have been exploring behavioural and physiological biometrics to enhance mobile device security, and now a research group from the University of Wisconsin and the Minnesota State University have published ¹ research suggesting that hybrid schemes with deep learning features and enhanced machine learning classification can improve authentication performance on smartphones.

The central research question addressed in the paper can be summarised as ‘What are the most effective biometric authentication methods for mobile devices, and which machine learning and deep learning algorithms work best with these biometric methods?’ 

The researchers found that the selection of algorithms significantly influences authentication performance, with Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) emerging as leaders in handling physiological and behavioural dynamics.

CNN excelled in processing physiological data, like facial and fingerprint-based authentication, while RNN proved useful for keystroke dynamics. Support Vector Machine (SVM) was the preferred choice for behavioural biometric classification, particularly in touch, motion, and keystroke dynamics.

The study also noted the growing adoption of hybrid authentication systems, where algorithms like CNN were used for feature extraction. These hybrid approaches, such as CNN + SVM for facial authentication, showed promise in improving authentication performance across different scenarios.

The paper also highlights several limitations in the studies it reviewed, noting that many of them did not test their models against various security attacks, potentially leaving authentication methods vulnerable.

BA Passengers Will Need to Show ID For Domestic Flights

British Airways (BA) will ask passengers aged 16 and above to show photographic identification, such as a passport, a driving licence, or a valid national identity card, for domestic flights within the UK starting this month.

The new policy adds that ‘children under the age of 16 do not need to show identification when traveling on domestic flights. The adult they are traveling with must travel with photographic identification and be able to confirm their identity.’ 

Meanwhile, children aged 14 and 15 who are flying alone must show identification when travelling on domestic flights.

The British flag carrier presently does not require identification from passengers traveling within the UK and carrying only hand baggage. However, it is recommended that they have some form of identification with them.

Unlike many other British-based airline rivals, such as easyJet or Jet2, which already require photographic identification for domestic flights, British Airways has been an exception for a while. The airline has avoided making it mandatory for customers to carry a driving licence or passport for trips within the UK, where authorities do not demand such documents.

The reason BA decided to implement this policy is unclear as the UK civil aviation regulator does not currently demand this rule to be implemented.

1 - www.mdpi.com/2624-800X/3/2/13