Biometric National Digital ID expansion - Apple Launches Digital IDs based on US passports to Wallet
Here I am reposting a couple updates on National ID and Biometric Surveillance. Apple is already launching Digital ID”s based on US Passports. UK has implemented passport free borders based on biometrics:
The richest men on Earth pushing forward AI implementation have significant national intelligence ties - Surveillance is part of most of them.
Google has historical ties to the NSA and CIA, as some of its foundational research was funded by the U.S. intelligence community to enhance mass surveillance capabilities. This collaboration aimed to develop technologies for tracking individuals online, reflecting a significant intersection between Silicon Valley and government surveillance efforts.
Oracle Corporation was founded in 1977, and its first customer was the CIA, which commissioned the development of a relational database system that was code-named “Oracle.” This connection significantly influenced the company’s early growth and its ongoing role in national security projects
Facebook’s growing role in the ever-expanding surveillance and “pre-crime” apparatus of the national security state demands new scrutiny of the company’s origins and its products as they relate to a former, controversial DARPA-run surveillance program that was essentially analogous to what is currently the world’s largest social network.
The Details About the CIA’s Deal With Amazon - A $600 million computing cloud built by an outside company is a “radical departure” for the risk-averse intelligence community.
The richest companies on Earth all have ties to the national intelligence and surveillance Big Brother apparatus, ushering the 4th Industrial Revolution but also the complete control of humanity. Biometric surveillance is part of this control grid, that is already implemented.
In 2014 this was published:
Larry Ellison Is A Billionaire Today Thanks To The CIA
Larry Ellison himself told Rosen proudly for The Naked Crowd, “The Oracle database is used to keep track of basically everything. The information about your banks, your checking balance, your savings balance, is stored in an Oracle database. Your airline reservation is stored in an Oracle database. What books you bought on Amazon is stored in an Oracle database. Your profile on Yahoo! is stored in an Oracle database.”
Here are a few updates internationally - Digital Identity for EVERYONE AROUND THE WORLD is an Agenda 2030 UN goal - clearly countries around the world and private companies in the United States are progressing. 193 UN member states committed to rolling out digital ID and digital payment in September of 2024.
All are modelling the Chinese Surveillance Strategies:
China’s surveillance ecosystem and the global spread of its tools
Chinese tech companies are among the largest firms in the world. Initially focused on the domestic market, they now sell various surveillance technologies to a global customer base. Increased collaboration between the party-state and private Chinese actors in the sale of surveillance products inspires trepidations about the proliferation of China’s surveillance tools, ergo the rise of unwarranted surveillance. Namely, researchers scrutinize China’s diplomatic activities, raising questions about the degree to which the government enables surveillance practices abroad. Large Chinese firms and state amplify debate and concerns by pushing to change the norms and mechanisms in the use of public security technology.
This paper seeks to offer insights into how China’s domestic surveillance market and cyber capability ecosystem operate, especially given the limited number of systematic studies on the industry and its growing influence in the Global South. This issue brief focuses on the development of the Chinese surveillance industry and the firms that make it possible, including those firms that sell surveillance tools within the international surveillance market. The brief has four parts. The first discusses the development of China’s surveillance ecosystem. It specifically explores the establishment of the Golden Shield Project (GSP), a national Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) network intended to digitize the public security sector, and its consequences for surveillance practices in China. The second section investigates China’s conception of “cyber sovereignty,” or wangluo zhuquan, which seeks to influence the governance of cyberspace. This idea and policy prerogative helps Beijing’s promotion of a controlled cyberspace and, therefore, the development of surveillance practices that rely on the use of artificial intelligence, big data, and biometric collection, among other means, to monitor citizens.
Here are recent updates on biometric data collection and digital ID. I consider digital ID the end of human freedom and the beginning of the irreversible slave society of the Cybernetic Hive Mind Military Industrial Intelligence Global One World Order.
Biometrics ease airport and online journeys, national digital ID expansion
Biometrics advances are culminating in new kinds of experiences for crossing international borders and getting through online age gates in some of the top stories of the week on Biometric Update. Specifically, passport-free passage through biometric e-gates in the UK and two major age assurance technology launches made headlines this week. National digital ID systems are maturing too, with Sri Lanka shortlisting five Indian firms to operate its digital identity system and Belgium expanding options for its residents.
Easier crossings for borders and age gates
The days when international flights meant standing in slow-moving lineups of people clutching their passports and accessing pornography online was easy for everyone appear to be coming to an end.
A trial of a biometric e-gate system that allowed travelers in the UK to pass through border control passport-free has is complete. The three-week trial at Manchester is part of a broader overhaul of the UK border control system that includes more biometric gates.
Biometric Update visited SITA’s Experience Center in Singapore, not far from Changi Airport, to see the latest in airport technology and learn more about its work with DTCs. SITA officials shared their vision for passport-free travel, enabled by biometrics, and handling capacity challenges as air traffic increases.
Barriers going up around regulated content online introduce similar challenges to international borders around making processes fast and easy for those allowed to pass. And the similarity extends to the technologies addressing those challenges.
k-ID has introduced the OpenAge initiative and AgeKeys, which use public-key cryptography and device biometrics or a PIN, in the form of a FIDO passkey, for reusable age verification online. Large American tech firms are connected to several seats on OpenAge’s advisory board.
In the other corner, or another corner of the market at least, is AgeAware. Nonprofit euCONSENT’s token-based reusable age assurance system was developed with help from Yoti, AgeChecked and VerifyMy, and went live this week.
National digital ID
Sri Lanka has announced Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Protean e-Gov, RailTel and Bharat Electronics have made its shortlist of system operators for its national digital ID. The country has also amended its Personal Data Protection Act to allow “greater flexibility in cross-border data flows” and allocated more than 35 billion rupees in its 2026 budget to support its broader digitization ambitions.
Two thousand biometric enrollment kits have been distributed to Ethiopian banks, with more on the way, so people can sign up to the Fayda system when opening an account. The national ID will be mandatory to do so by the end of the year, and enrollment at financial institutions is expected to boost Fayda issuance.
Apple launches digital IDs based on US passports to Wallet
Apple Wallet can now store digital credentials derived from U.S. passports, which are accepted by the TSA for domestic flights. The credentials, which Apple calls “Digital ID,” will not have legal equivalence with a physical passport. In the absence of an official national ID, U.S. government-issued digital IDs so far have mostly been mDLs.
Two new papers from the OpenID Foundation set out how U.S. mDLs can serve KYC use cases via the verifiable credentials standard, which would significantly expand the potential for digital ID adoption in America.
Belgium is at a different stage in its own journey, with more than 400,000 people now signed up for MyGov digital IDs, a year and a half after its launch. The digital government services platform provides a public sector alternative to Itsme,
The ADVP has requested a meeting with UK Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office Darren Jones to make sure the government is planning to at least keep the DIATF system that provides private sector alternatives to its own digital ID.
The surveillance wet blanket
Amazon’s plan to introduce the Familiar Faces facial recognition feature to its Ring cameras has sparked pushback from privacy advocates, including EFF. The feature will not be offered in Illinois, Texas, or Portland, Oregon where there are relatively strict regulations around biometric data privacy.
The Homeland Security Information Network is watching over NCAA football games with live video. As DHS’ official system for sharing information with partners, HSIN also offers a form for authorized users to make requests for facial recognition searches from state and local law enforcement partners.
The EU is reportedly considering a draft proposal that would weaken the AI Act and GDPR under pressure from U.S. tech companies and the Trump administration. The “digital omnibus” is expected to be presented next week.
Japan’s national broadcaster NHK profiled the team behind NEC’s facial recognition technology. The Project X: The Challengers – New Beginnings episode features interviews with NEC Fellow Hitoshi Imaoka, Yusuke Morishita and Akihiro Hayasaka.
U.S. passports are coming to iPhones and Apple Watches, with the company adding support for digital IDs created with them to Apple Wallet. The form digitalized passports will take is a new credential that ever-direct Apple calls Digital ID.
Digital IDs will be accepted at TSA checkpoints for domestic flights in 250 airports across the U.S. for identity verification checks. Additional checkpoints and use cases accepting digital ID are expected to follow. They will not substitute for physical passports for crossing borders.
Apple has been working on digital IDs based on passports for a while, after bringing state-issued IDs like mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) to Apple Wallet in 2021. State IDs need to be REAL ID-compliant, though, so are still not available in some states. mDLs from 12 states and Puerto Rico are currently supported, as is Japan’s My Number Card. Google Wallet added support for Puerto Rican IDs to a list that includes 10 states at the end of October.
Apple VP of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet Jennifer Bailey confirmed at Money20/20 a few weeks ago that U.S. passports would be supported in Apple Wallet by the end of this year.
“Since introducing the ability to add a driver’s license or state ID to Apple Wallet in 2022, we’ve seen how much users love having their ID right on their devices,” says Bailey in the company announcement. “Digital IDs brings this secure and convenient option to even more users across the country, as they can now add an ID to Wallet using information from their U.S. passport.”
The announcement describes the process for creating a Digital ID with a U.S. passport, including a document scan, a selfie for face biometrics matching and an active liveness check.
Presentations of Digital IDs in Apple Wallets also use biometrics for authentication, whether Touch ID fingerprints or Face ID. Digital ID data is encrypted, and users can review the information being requested and authorize it to share it without showing or handing over their device.
Digital wallets integrate biometrics in India, Vietnam as Taiwan rolls out POCs
Wallet ecosystem grows globally with new activity in Taiwan, Vietnam
India, a digital identity powerhouse thanks to its Aadhaar system, is getting a new national digital wallet with embedded face biometrics. India.com says the Aadhaar App functions as a secure digital wallet for storing, displaying and sharing Aadhaar credentials, enabling users to store up to 5 Aadhaar profiles on a single phone. It is now available for both Android and iOS.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is promoting it as complementary to the existing mAadhaar app, which remains the portal for downloading a digital Aadhaar card, ordering a PVC card, verifying contact details, or generating a virtual ID.
Use cases for the new app include expedited hotel check-in, SIM activation and KYC for banking. With multiple accounts on one device, it promises to make it easier for families sharing a single registered mobile number.
The app has facial authentication and biometric lock features for security, and facial scanning for sharing ID. It enables selective sharing of information to maximize privacy, supports QR code scanning and sharing for identity verification, and works offline.
Taiwan to launch 3 wallet POCs next month
The global stage is setting up wallets for continued success. Europe’s EUDI Wallet scheme is about a year away from launch. The GOV.UK is live in the UK. And countries in Asia-Pacific continue to express support for wallets.
Taiwan recently reiterated its commitment to promoting digital credential wallets. According to CNA.com, its Ministry of Digital Development is planning to release three proof-of-concept projects for a digital wallet in December. According to government officials, the project involves not only technology but also “persuading the business community to participate, especially hoping that convenience stores will adopt it.”
This article is from 2023 - cradle to grave biometric surveillance systems are in place.
NEC infant fingerprinting system approaches move from vaccination delivery to legal ID
ID Day was held this past Saturday, September 16, in recognition of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16’s target 9; to provide universal birth registration for children under 5 years old by 2030.
One of the key projects in that effort is the development of fingerprint biometric systems that will work with infants. NEC reported success with a clinical trial earlier this year, and moved on to a pilot at a hospital in preparation for a wider rollout.
The system designed to support early childhood vaccinations is part of a broader effort to provide legal identity to newborns and enable their identities to be safely authenticated, NEC spokesperson Joseph Jasper told Biometric Update in an email.
Originally, NEC considered other biometric modalities, such as iris, face or vein recognition, but also whether this is a problem best addressed with the emerging capabilities of contactless fingerprint biometrics.
UN member states agreed to Digital ID with ‘Pact for the Future’ adoption
Some countries are rapidly advancing digital ID while others may be slow-walking towards DPI, just waiting for a regime change, perceived crisis, or policy update to bring it all online: perspective
With the adoption of the “Pact for the Future” at the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024, 193 member states committed, in a non-binding way, to rolling out digital ID schemes as part of a wider plan for Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).
DPI is a civic technology stack consisting of three main components:
Digital identity
Fast payment systems (e.g. programmable Central Bank Digital Currency [CBDC] systems, stablecoins, online banking apps, etc.)
Massive data exchanges between public and private entities
Always respond with your mind. "No thanks, I won't be doing that." Then mentally create the future you want to be in...tyranny free and loving life. They cannot control your mind unless you let them. You control your mind and you are not buying in...
Disaster!!