Tag Archive for: verification

Is Louisiana’s ID Verification Mandate a Step in the Wrong Direction? – Global Village Space

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It was recently announced that Louisiana had introduced legislation that requires users of adult websites to show identification to access the pages. This has stirred up plenty of questions about how much authority governments can have over the policing of the internet.

Aside from the ethical debates surrounding the news, it also feels like this is a step backward. Technology is moving forward rapidly, and improved methods of authentication are already emerging. A more sensible solution could be to jump on the growing trend of biometric technology for accessing websites.

What is the Louisiana Mandate?

PIA reported that lawmakers in Louisiana have decided to implement a new rule for accessing adult websites. In a push to ensure that children don’t encounter content that could be damaging to them, internet users in the state will now be required to use their personal identification credentials to log on.

Experts have noted how other countries, including the UK, Australia, and Germany, have all attempted similar measures in the past. None of these worked. In fact, collecting IDs for age verification can have serious knock-on effects when it comes to data privacy.

This highlights how there’s a need for more modern approaches to authentication that are in line with the advancing technological world. Biometrics has already started to creep in on devices and some sites. However, they haven’t become widespread or used as an alternative to traditional identification methods yet.

How Far Away are We From Ubiquitous Biometrics?

According to Grand View Research, the global biometrics market will be worth around $60 billion by 2025. It is growing at a rate of 20.4 percent each year, and this is being driven by the increased demand for enhanced security methods.

Issues Arising from Biometrics

For the technology to become used for logging onto all sites and devices, internet users need to have the reassurance that their data won’t be sold or lost to third parties.

Like it or not, biometric technology is on the way, and some people believe that it is a great step forward. There’s no doubt, though, that western countries will need to learn how to cope with these challenges. There…

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Africa: Why Digital Identity Verification is on the rise

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In Africa, there are a plethora of banking prospects. The area is a “sleeping giant” when it comes to having access to conventional bank accounts, online banking, and reasonably priced financial services. Identity Verification APIs are now providing resolutions to the finance sector with their old customer onboarding woes in Africa.

The World Bank estimates that 57% of Africans still don’t have a bank account of any type, including a mobile money account. According to a recent analysis by BPC and Fincog, this amounts to around 360 million adults in the area and 17% of the world’s unbanked population lacking access to formal financial services.

Many Africans lack official identification cards, making it difficult for people to access banking, education, and healthcare services. This can make it difficult for governments and companies to confirm the identities of their residents and clients.

Only 15 African countries have finished their national cybersecurity strategies for threat monitoring and response, according to a study from the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, according to South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), which notes that most of Africa’s banking regulations for digital services are slow to evolve.

Aggressive digital expansion in the Finance Sector

The competitive tech landscape that has contributed to a leapfrogging effect by avoiding conventional channels like landlines and going straight to mobile phones has contributed to the growth of Africa’s technology industry. Over time, this development has made the area an essential market for corporate growth and has sped up the adoption of eBanking and mobile money payment systems.

The high rates of fraud and cyber risks, as well as the dearth of cutting-edge identity verification methods to effectively combat fraudsters, are important obstacles restricting potential in the region.

How Identity Verification helps delivering Financial Services across the continent

Identity verification solutions can help with this problem, bringing huge companies to the area who have been put off by the region’s high levels of fraud and inability to adequately authenticate their clients.

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Due to the…

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A decentralized verification system could be the key to boosting digital security

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We use internet-connected devices to access our bank accounts, keep our transport systems moving, communicate with our colleagues, listen to music, undertake commercially sensitive tasks – and order pizza. Digital security is integral to our lives, every day.

As our IT systems become more complex, the potential for vulnerabilities increases. More and more organizations are being breached, leading to financial loss, interrupted supply chains, and identity fraud.

The current best practice in secure technology architecture used by major businesses and organizations is a “zero trust” approach. In other words, no person or system is trusted and every interaction is verified through a central entity.

Unfortunately, absolute trust is then placed in the verification system being used. So breaching this system gives an attacker the keys to the kingdom. To address this issue, “decentralization” is a new paradigm that removes any single point of vulnerability.

Our work investigates and develops the algorithms required to set up an effective decentralized verification system. We hope our efforts will help safeguard digital identities, and bolster the security of the verification processes so many of us rely on.

Never trust, always verify

A zero-trust system implements verification at every possible step. Every user is verified, and every action they take is verified, too, before implementation.

Moving towards this approach is considered so important that U.S. President Joe Biden made an executive order last year requiring all U.S. federal government organizations to adopt a zero-trust architecture. Many commercial organizations are following suit.

However, in a zero-trust environment, absolute faith is (counter-intuitively) placed in the validation and verification system, which in most cases is an Identity and Access Management (IAM) system. This creates a single trusted entity, which, if breached, gives unencumbered access to the entire organization’s systems.

An attacker can use one user’s stolen credentials (such as a username and password) to impersonate that user and do anything they’re authorized to do – whether it’s opening doors, authorizing certain payments, or copying…

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OpenTable Joins With Secure ID Firm CLEAR To Streamline Vaccine Verification For Diners, Restaurants – CBS San Francisco

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — As San Francisco and other major cities begin requiring proof of a COVID vaccination for indoor dining, online restaurant reservation provider OpenTable is partnering with secure identity firm CLEAR to help establishments check diners’ vaccine status.

San Francisco-based OpenTable said Wednesday that when diners use the app to make a reservation at a restaurant requiring vaccination, it will display a “CLEAR” banner on the reservation confirmation page linking to instructions on creating a digital vaccine card on the CLEAR app.

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The CLEAR digital vaccine card will appear on the OpenTable app for easy proof of vaccination. The CLEAR vaccine card connects a person’s verified identity to their proof of vaccination from hundreds of vaccine providers across the country, including the state of California and national pharmacies.

“Our partnership with CLEAR furthers our commitment to help both restaurants and diners navigate dining out in the next chapter of the pandemic,” said OpenTable CEO Debby Soo in a press statement. “This collaboration aims to streamline restaurant entry, saving time for both restaurant staff and diners and lets everyone focus on the meal – not the logistics.”

The OpenTable/CLEAR integration is expected to launch in September on OpenTable’s iPhone and Android apps.

Last week, San Francisco began requiring businesses in high-contact indoor sectors such as bars, restaurants, indoor gyms and entertainment venues to obtain proof of vaccination from their patrons and employees, the first health order of its kind in the nation.

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The mandate follows a number of tough COVID-19 measures San Francisco imposed since the beginning of the pandemic. The city and its neighboring counties in the Bay Area were the first in the nation to order residents to stay at home in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus and was the first big city in the nation to require all city employees to be vaccinated, without the option of testing…

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